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

by Desmond Cory

  “Well, in any case,” said van Kuyp, “Number one job for the morning is getting our stores tent up and the goods stacked away inside it. We should get everything in comfortably, except for the dynamite. We’ll dig a separate pit for that.”

  “Well removed from my tent, I trust,” said Raven briefly. This was a joke.

  “Anywhere you say, Professor. It’s your material, after all. Madrid, you and your brother and I can get together and see the stuff properly shifted. If we’re through by eleven o’clock, I’ll take chop early and get off on my field reconnaissance. Professor, you’ll be anxious to do the same.”

  “Certainly. I saw a most promising-looking breccia—”

  “Yes, I noticed that particularly. Well, you and David can start just whenever you like. Take two or three of the natives with picks, if you wish.” Van Kuyp took a long gulp of boiling coffee, and gasped. “Schneider, you and Madrid can spend the rest of the day getting the camp fixed up properly. I guess that stockade can be fixed up a sight more securely; then you can arrange a good safe fire-base and cookhouse and decent sanitary arrangements – You know it all as well as I do, Okay?”

  “We’ll see to it all,” said Schneider.

  “Fine. We’ll get off to a good clean start; and when the reconnaissance period is over, we can really get down to work. I don’t know about your plans, Mr. Fedora,” said van Kuyp, surveying Johnny seriously over the brim of his mug. “I guess the boat’ll be clear for your use by about eleven o’clock – I hope so, anyway. But maybe you’ve found these last few days pretty strenuous, coming right after your illness – if you’d like to stay with us for a few days before going after your gorillas, you’ll be very welcome.”

  Johnny nodded. “I’ll have to talk things over with Demetrius, and I don’t suppose we’ll be ready to start right away. So I may accept your very kind invitation.”

  “Great, great.” The fire spat angrily as van Kuyp threw the dregs of his coffee into its depths. “Well, I suppose I ought to advise you all to turn in early and get a good night’s sleep. We’re going to have a strenuous day tomorrow; yes, sir; very strenuous indeed.”

  Yes: very strenuous indeed, thought Johnny.

  7

  JOHNNY FEDORA of the British Intelligence lay placidly on his back, smoking a cigarette and pondering his recent promotion to the ranks of the Master Race. Through the open fly of the tent, he could see the purple-edged clouds domineering the sky to the east; on the tufty banks of the river, a flock of flamingoes were paddling, snuffling the water. From away to his right came the shouts of the natives, building the camp stockade under the orders of Schneider and Madrid; the river floated lazily past all the time, completely disregarding the orders of a peremptory mid-morning sun. Johnny drew on his cigarette, and sipped comfortably from time to time at a mug of lukewarm coffee; the flies buzzed irritably about the tent, without disturbing his equanimity.

  As the morning drew on, the sounds of the working natives diminished and died away; Johnny looked at his watch and saw that the time was approaching noon. He stretched himself out more comfortably on the bed, undid another button of his bush shirt and wondered if it was really too hot for sleep. He was still considering this knotty problem when a shadow darkened the floor of his tent and Schneider came in, mopping his dripping forehead with a handkerchief.

  “Finished for the morning?” asked Johnny.

  Schneider nodded, and after a moment’s pause seated himself at the foot of the bed. “It’s too hot to go on working,” he said, tilting his helmet back on his head. “One of the Bushmen just passed out, confound it. Too much for him.”

  “The Bushmen did all right on the canoe.”

  “Yes. But they’re used to jungle heat, not bush heat. It’s much more humid down-river. Anyway, I’ve sent them into the shade for the noonday rest.” Schneider gave a final wipe to his pale lips and pocketed the handkerchief. “The Bushmen don’t like this country, Fedora.”

  Johnny shook his head. “They find it a strain on their nerves?”

  “So Madrid thinks. We may have to send them back home in a couple of days, or they’ll be deserting anyway. The Masai are all right so far … Listen, Fedora. When the Bushmen leave, tomorrow or the day after – then perhaps we should make our move, too.”

  “You think that’ll be a good time?”

  “Yes. They’ll all have got into the swing of work by then. Madrid will tell them that I’ve gone off after gorilla with you, on the spur of the moment; they’ll be annoyed with me, but they’ll be too occupied to take much notice.”

  “Madrid’s staying here, then?”

  “Yes, naturally. She’s the Expedition’s interpreter; they’d be quite lost without her. If she disappeared, it would give rise to speculation.” Schneider bit pensively at his knuckles.

  Johnny watched him for a few moments, then picked up his mug of coffee and drained its remnants. “I’d like to know how you two got the idea your father might be here in the Kob’ei,” he said. “It was supposed to be one of our best-kept secrets.”

  Schneider smiled. “I’m sure that your Service kept its secrets well. You forget that we both had inside knowledge, as you might say, of our father’s ambitions. When we learnt that he had undertaken a mission for your Government in the closing stages of the war, we were both pretty sure it would be in the Ubangi area he’d talked so much about.”

  “I see,” said Johnny, and nodded curtly.

  “I myself can claim no credit. It was Madrid who did all the brainwork. She found that cutting you discovered – about your German flying-boat – and she guessed that its intention had been to pick up father at the completion of his mission. And … there’s only one place within a thousand miles of the Ubangi where a flying-boat can land.”

  Johnny nodded again. “The lakes. I realised when I saw the cutting that you had worked that out for yourself. But why the delay?”

  “The delay?”

  “Yes. Our organisation has been slow to find its feet. But why have you waited so long before coming to find your father?”

  “You forget,” said Schneider, “that I was in South America until the winter of 1950. When I joined Madrid and learnt of what she had guessed – then we decided to go to the Kob’ei and search for our father there. But we had no money, Fedora; no money at all. Our only hope was to join an Expedition travelling up the Ubangi, and we had to make many fruitless efforts and applications before we were lucky.”

  “You joined this one at Nairobi?”

  “That’s so,” Schneider agreed. “We answered an advertisement, and we were accepted. We were sure to succeed in the end, for our qualifications were excellent and our fees – in this case – very reasonable.” He smiled again, somewhat crookedly.

  “Well, let’s hope we’re successful. The lakes are sixty-odd miles away, over pretty rough country. It’s going to be quite a trek.”

  “Yes. We must make our plans with care. Fortunately,” said Schneider, rising to his feet, “we’ll have ample opportunity to discuss matters, with the Americans out in the field all day. It’s been difficult so far to get any … privacy at all.”

  “Nevertheless, we must still be cautious.”

  “Of course,” Schneider made a curious jerking movement that might have been generously construed as a bow. “I think I shall lie down for a while, myself. We’ll have a meal in round about two hours’ time.”

  He ducked under the flap, then suddenly turned back and peered into the tent. “I almost forgot what I originally came in to tell you. Van Kuyp has gone to join the others, and has taken some dynamite with him. So if you should hear any explosions, there’s no need to be alarmed; they will only be blasting to check the nearby stratifications.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” said Johnny, “but thank you, anyway.”

  Schneider grinned, and disappeared from view. Johnny slowly rolled himself another cigarette, made slight adjustments to the hang of the pistol-holster beside his bed, and bega
n to smoke again. At one time, he had thought that the process of smoking somehow aided the process of thinking; he was no longer sure that this was true. He was not even sure that there was such a thing as the process of thinking in Africa, where the heat turned men’s muscles to mush and their brains to a kind of jelly. The temperature was now somewhere around a hundred and fifteen, and the canvas beneath him was sticky and moulded to his flesh.

  He finished his cigarette slowly, then flipped it away through the tent-flaps out to the baked earth; it spiralled smoke feebly upwards for a few minutes, then expired. Johnny swung his feet to the ground; buttoned his bush-shirt, buckled his belt, reached for his faded topee. If mad dogs and Englishmen could go out into that inferno, then surely a Nazi Intelligence Officer might be permitted to do the same.

  He walked out of the tent, and the heat of the ground came up at him like a physical blow in the face. He wrinkled his eyes into the glare, looking about him; the camp was silent and as though deserted. Demetrius lay at his feet in the inadequate shade of the tent, curled up peacefully asleep; Johnny moved silently past him and out towards the newly-built fireplace camp. It was a smart-looking affair of newly-chipped limestone, gleaming white in the sun; a faint trail of aromatic smoke drifted up from the embers in its midst, rising almost straight in the windless air. Johnny watched for a few moments, stooped to throw another faggot on to it, then walked on towards the river.

  As he approached, he saw a disturbance in the water far downstream; the surface was dimpled and then burst by two great surging shapes that rose and fell almost in rhythm, splashing and kicking and snapping. Johnny could just hear the hoarse grunts and the clashing of huge jaws; he paused to follow the course of the combat, and where he stood his shadow fell directly beneath him; for this was the full blaze of noon … As he watched, one of the hippos turned and fled, its ungainly bulk tearing aside great veils of leaping spray; the victor pursued it mercilessly towards the bank where, invisible in the river-growth, the female was patiently awaiting the outcome of the dispute. The struggling monsters disappeared; Johnny walked on to where, dressed in shirt and shorts and with a towel round her neck, Madrid was washing herself.

  She waded out of the shallow water, dabbing at her face with the towel. “What was all that splashing I heard?”

  “A couple of hippos scrapping,” said Johnny; and looked away up the river. “A little late in the season; but when you’re that size you can afford to be a little slow.”

  “That’s a refreshing thought,” said Madrid. “I thought I heard hippo last night, but I couldn’t be sure.”

  “What are you doing out here, at noon?”

  “That’s surely perfectly obvious,” said Madrid, with composure. “I usually take a wash at this time, and I usually am able to do so in privacy.”

  “Privacy seems to be at a premium,” said Johnny. “As your brother was saying a few minutes ago.”

  She rubbed busily with the towel, white against the nut-brown roundness of her thighs. “You and my brother seem to be getting on very well together.”

  “I hope to help him find your father,” said Johnny.

  “Yes. I know. I’m sure you’ll be very useful.” There was an edge of sarcasm to her voice. “And when you find him, you’ll take him away somewhere; so that he can help you get ready for another war. I do appreciate such disinterested assistance.”

  Johnny watched her steadily. “He will be an important man, when he returns to civilisation. His family will be important, too. So that you can be with him all the time if that’s what you want.”

  “And why shouldn’t that be what I want?”

  “Because a girl like you should be more concerned with finding a husband than finding a father.”

  Madrid straightened her back and surveyed him indignantly; beneath the tan of her cheeks there was a suspicion of a heightened colour. “… I’m not likely to lose my temper with you, Fedora. I’ll just suggest you mind your own business, and get on with … with your New Order.”

  “The Old Order was satisfactory in certain respects,” said Johnny. He knew that his brain had noted the fact that Madrid was standing extremely close to him; but he was not aware that his muscles had been told to take advantage of this proximity. He discovered, almost in a panic of surprise, that he was kissing her with intensity and that she was apparently objecting to this treatment; her slender body was arching and wriggling like a netted leopard against his, but without much hope of escape. She was also trying to strangle him; and in this she might well have succeeded, had she not abandoned the attempt and begun, gradually, bewilderingly, at last passionately, to respond to the kiss.

  My God, thought Johnny. Caveman stuff. I must be going light in the head.

  “Let me go, let me go. Will you let me go?”

  Johnny would have done so long ago, if he had not forgotten how to. He tried to explain this, but had managed no more than a couple of words before Madrid freed her elbow and slapped him ferociously. He could see another blow coming, and closed his eyes; but the impact never came. Instead, from the hills to the north there sounded a fierce, crackling explosion; Madrid’s body stiffened in his arms, and they turned together to stare towards the jungle. For a few seconds there was nothing to see but the green bush and the aching blue sky; then slowly, rising with a certain calm deliberation, a pillar of vapour wound its way upwards from the region of the northern terrace.

  “What was that?”

  “It’s all right,” Johnny had remembered Schneider’s warning. “That’ll be van Kuyp and Raven blasting deposits on the Kob’ei.”

  Madrid’s eyes were round and scared. “The Bushmen aren’t going to like that much.”

  “Why should they care?”

  “They’ll think that we’re deliberately provoking the devils.”

  Johnny looked down at her; her face was no more than six inches from his, for her body was still pressed tightly against his own. “Maybe we are,” he suggested.

  She took a deep breath, and expelled it. “Yes, I think we are. Let me go now, Fedora, please.”

  Johnny released her; she took two quick backward steps without moving her eyes from him. Then she stooped to pick up her towel. The pulse between Johnny’s eyes had not stopped beating.

  She looked at him again, twisting the towel between her fingers. “I wish I’d never come here,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “… You must never do that again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because …” Her teeth gleamed for a second in her first smile of the day. “Well – just because.”

  … There was a shout from the camp; a patter of running feet. Johnny turned. Demetrius came haring down the path at full speed, gesticulating as he ran. “O sir,” he said, gasping for breath. “Come. Come at once.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Death has happened,” said Demetrius.

  Tentigi the Masai lay in the shade of the jungle, beneath an outcrop of flowering myrtle. His grey face peered upwards towards the bursting blossoms; from the deep wound in his side the blood still trickled sluggishly, staining the grass around him. Demetrius, crouched at his head, closed the staring eyes with his forefinger and looked nervously up at Johnny.

  “It’s Tentigi, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, he won’t be answering any questions after all,” Johnny’s hand stroked the butt of his Colt methodically. “It’s inconvenient; very.”

  He turned away. Ten paces to his left, two of the Masai held their captive, arms pinioned behind his back; he stood placidly, sweating freely but making no attempt to struggle. The other natives sat cross-legged on the sward, watching the scene with passive interest; Schneider and Madrid stood farther back, in the shade of the trees, talking in lowered voices. Johnny beckoned Demetrius towards him.

  “Translate for me,” he said briefly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll question the prisoner first.”

/>   The captive watched Johnny’s approach alertly, but showed no sign of emotion. Fedora paused before him, and looked him up and down.

  “Name?”

  Demetrius repeated the question; the prisoner replied readily enough. “… Kigiriye.”

  “Kigiriye,” repeated Johnny. “Tell him that I have spoken his name. Then ask him why he has killed his friend and his brother.”

  The Masai watched Demetrius while he translated, then looked down at the ground. He made no reply.

  “Repeat the question.”

  Demetrius did so; with no better result.

  “Very well. Who gives evidence?”

  Demetrius beckoned to another of the natives, who stepped immediately forward. “This is Kiyogo, sir.”

  “Kiyogo. I have his name. Tell him to say what he knows.”

  The witness nodded solemnly and squatted on the ground. Demetrius did the same. Johnny remained standing, and listened to the swift spate of apparent gibberish proceeding from Kiyogo’s lips. The interrogation lasted for almost a couple of minutes; then the Masai retired and Demetrius rose again to his feet.

  “He says that the noise of the devils in the hills roused him and his companions from their sleep, sir. They were turning to each other in fear when they saw that the accused Kigiriye was creeping away into the bush, carrying his knife. They further saw that Tentigi was dead, and they ran to capture Kigiriye. They seized him and held him and found that his knife was bloodstained; so,” said Demetrius finally, in the formal phrase, “he is accused of murder.”

  Johnny looked up at the heavy sky. “Question further witnesses to see that Kiyogo speaks the truth.”

  “He speaks the truth, sir. He swears by the kithutu, a most binding oath.”

  “Question the others, nevertheless.”

  Demetrius nodded, and began to talk rapidly to one of the unfortunate Kigiriye’s guards. Johnny rolled and lit a cigarette. Schneider and Madrid had now strolled across to join him, and stood in silence at his elbow. The girl was listening intently to the conversation; Schneider, seemingly ill at ease, stood with his shoulders hunched and his hands driven deep into his pockets.