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

by Desmond Cory

  He woke up, sweating violently; rolled over and looked at his wrist-watch. The luminous hands pointed to twenty past four. He heard the sound that had roused him; the sound of footsteps; then he heard Raven’s voice again, and van Kuyp’s answering him. He could not make out the words; they were standing too far way. But he heard van Kuyp say briefly, “Come along, David” – and then the noise of footsteps retreating towards the river.

  He looked at the inverted V of the sky outside his tent; still inky blue, but washed faintly with the first hint of the coming radiance of dawn. They were making an early start all right, he reflected; he was still in that half-way stage between sleep and waking. He pushed aside the mosquito net and poured himself half a tumblerful of water; drank, then relaxed and went swiftly to sleep again.

  He slept conscious of the passing of time, as he had trained himself to do, and conscious of the variations of sound that came from the nearby jungle. He was aware, after thirty minutes or so had passed, of the gathering silence that always preceded the rebirth of the sun; and his subconscious mind began to anticipate the sharp warning yell of the lemurs on the fringes of the forest. On another level of consciousness, he was indeed aware of lemurs all around him; of huge man-sized lemurs with amber-coloured eyes, that prowled through the jungle with heavy stones clutched firmly in their fists; the tall trees bowed and wept as the animals passed beneath them; while in the lower branches of the strangest tree of all a female squatted patiently, watching two of the males fighting for her, smashing blows at each other with their pointed stones, oblivious of the head of the serpent that swayed ominously to and fro behind them.

  Johnny knew that this was somehow a different snake to the one he had killed in Madrid’s tent; he tensed himself, driving himself back to consciousness with a deliberate effort, and as his eyes opened he heard again the sound of the snake’s hiss. It was not a hiss, though; but the sound of something rasping lightly against the canvas of his tent. He blinked once, but did not move; he saw the shadow hesitating on the far side of the mosquito net, shapeless and weird.

  “Fedora,” said Madrid’s voice, coming from nowhere with incredible urgency; Johnny twisted himself sideways as the knife came down, slashing through the flimsy veil of netting and cutting through the canvas of the bed with an angry rip. The blade touched his neck, stinging like a wasp, and the hard brown hand wrapped round the hilt came to rest against his collar bone; Johnny kicked himself away from the bed, tearing the netting with him, and found himself grappling on the ground with somebody apparently endowed with four arms and exceptionally knobbly knees. Johnny had hold of the man’s wrist; he twisted it savagely, wresting the knife free, then snatched it up and struck, and struck again, and again. With the third blow he felt a spout of blood thump sickeningly against his hand; he released the knife, wriggled clear of the body beneath him and began to crawl on hands and knees, still inextricably encumbered in his mosquito net, towards the opening of the tent. Someone stooped over him and pulled feverishly at the folds of the netting; eventually something gave with a splitting noise of protest, and Johnny was able to rise awkwardly to his feet. He stood by the centre pole, rocking slightly, brushing away stray strips of muslin that still clung coyly around his waist.

  “Are you all right?” asked Madrid.

  Johnny was only gradually recovering breath from his sudden exertions; he looked her up and down, then transferred his attention to the dark shape sprawled vaguely at his feet. He reached out with an uncertain hand for the oil lamp; struck a match, and lit it.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” he said. “Another lovely morning.”

  Madrid had drawn in her breath sharply at the spurt of the match. “You’re bleeding. You’re bleeding terribly.”

  “Thanks I’d noticed,” Johnny lowered the lamp to the floor, and stooped to examine his assailant. The light gleamed on a dark brown torso, on two brown hands clenched over the hilt of a knife that protruded from the lower ribs, on scarlet snakelets of blood. Johnny moved the lamp again, to reveal more clearly the dead man’s face. “Looks like one of the Masai,” he said. “So yesterday’s little … No, it isn’t. Good Lord, it’s Snort.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Oh yes.” Johnny lifted the lamp again, and hung it on its hook. Its rays filtered weakly through the air outside for a few feet, and were then swallowed up in the dawn; the sky was yellow and green, the grass spangled with silver. Johnny sat down on his bed and looked rather stupidly at the blood that coated his right wrist. “I think it’s mostly his; the blood, I mean.”

  “Not all.” Madrid moved forwards and picked up the water-bottle. “There’s a cut on the side of your neck. I don’t think it’s serious.” She hesitated for a moment. “You’d better wash it down,” she said, handing him the bottle.

  Johnny explored his throat with his fingers. “That’s only a scratch,” he said with some contempt, and took a long drink instead. Then he coughed. “It did little more than sever the jugular,” he explained.

  “Oh, for God’s sake. D’you want tetanus or something? Wait here,” said Madrid. “I’ll get the first-aid kit.”

  Johnny watched her move away into the freshness outside the tent; kicked the tangle of mosquito netting moodily to one side and reached for the other bottle. He had not liked to drink whisky at first, because he feared it might run out of a hole in the side of his neck and be irretrievably wasted; now, however, he was reassured. He took a long gulp, closed his eyes; stoppered the flask again. He looked at his bare chest, sticky with drying blood; shuddered, and pulled on his bush shirt. He was buckling his pistol-belt into place when Madrid returned.

  “Sit down,” she said. “And keep still.”

  Johnny sat down again, and kept still. This last was not easy; for the tincture of iodine was painful, to put it mildly. Tears ran from his screwed-up eyes at the agony of it. Madrid finished the job with a strip of adhesive plaster, and stepped back to survey her handiwork; Johnny hastily reached for the flask again. He felt that he’d earned it.

  “If your Mother could see you now,” said the girl dispassionately, “she’d probably have a fit. How you ever retained your rank in Germany, I can’t imagine.”

  Johnny rolled an indignant eye at her, but said nothing. Speech would have been injudicious at that moment. He removed the flask from his lips as a preliminary to his reply …

  “You’re about the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen,” said Madrid, apparently with satisfaction.

  “Just because I look like Macbeth doesn’t mean I haven’t got a sweet and forgiving nature,” said Johnny. “It just needs whisky to bring out the best in me; that’s all. Now suppose you tell me just what’s going on.”

  “I was hoping you could tell me. It seems pretty clear that that fellow on the floor had it in for you.”

  “Evidently.” Johnny looked at his wrist-watch. The time was almost twenty to six. “One wonders why. What had you to do with it?”

  “Me? Nothing.” Madrid seemed surprised. “I saw him coming into your tent, and I thought I’d better … Well, he went straight in without calling you first, so I thought something might be wrong. I got here too late, anyway.”

  “Almost. Where’s Demetrius?”

  “I’ve no idea. With the other boys, I suppose; cooking breakfast.”

  “The rest of our crowd have gone up to the terrace, haven’t they? Raven and van Kuyp and Banfield.”

  “Yes. How did you know that?”

  “I heard them leaving,” said Johnny. He swatted absently at a fly that was eagerly inspecting his neck. “About an hour ago.”

  “That’s right. Otto’s still asleep.”

  “Um. Why aren’t you?”

  “I just happened to be up early,” said the girl coldly.

  “It was lucky you were, anyway; from my point of view. Not so lucky from Snort’s. It seems incredible,” said Johnny thoughtfully, “that he’d have the nerve to do this on his own bat.”

  “What do you mean by
that?”

  “I’m not sure that I mean anything.” Johnny rose to his feet and stepped towards the fly of the tent. “Let’s go and have a look at your brother. It occurs to me, you know, that I might not have been the only fellow on the agenda. Perhaps they were planning to take us three first … and then the rest.”

  “Oh God,” said Madrid, and came running. Johnny caught her by the wrist as she went past. “Take it easy,” he said. “Hurry isn’t going to help.”

  They walked together over the sward towards Schneider’s tent; the turf gave noiselessly under their feet, and seemed to impart an urgent spring to their steps. The horizon to the east was clearly silhouetted, but dimness still shrouded the jungle and all the land to the west; a deep blue dimness that gave the scenery a two-dimensional quality, as though it had been cut out of cardboard. Schneider’s tent lay at the end of the row; its flap open to the morning air.

  “Schneider,” said Johnny softly, pausing outside. There was no reply. He ducked his head and went in.

  Schneider wasn’t there. The canvas camp bed stood in the corner; a huddle of miscellaneous equipment beside it. But Schneider’s Mannlicher was missing, and so was his light rucksack. Johnny lit the lamp and gave the interior a closer examination, but he had made no mistake.

  He sat down, picked a cigarette from the round tin that stood beside the bed, and lit it from the flame of the lamp. He surveyed Madrid incuriously as he did so.

  Madrid said, “He must have gone with the others.”

  “With his rifle and rucksack?” said Johnny and breathed out smoke and tapped the bare canvas of the bed. “Not to mention his sleeping bag?”

  Madrid’s gaze became speculative. “Then he’s gone.”

  “Such is my impression.”

  “But – I thought you were going with him.”

  “Such also was my impression. Otto seems to have decided that one head is better than two.”

  Madrid looked at him; there was something in her eyes that almost resembled happiness. “He’s gone to find father. On his own.”

  Johnny sighed. “You catch on quick,” he said. “You knew nothing about it before, of course?”

  “No. He didn’t tell me. I’m glad he’s gone without you.”

  “Why?’”

  “Never mind.”

  “Things would work out more smoothly,” said Johnny pleasantly, “if he had told you about it. Then Snort could have murdered me in comfort, and the two of you could have carried me down to the river. It’s a nice, deep river, with crocodiles in it. Then when the others came back, you could have told them that your brother and I had gone to hunt gorilla; it could all have been nicely arranged. So it’s a pity, really, you didn’t know anything about it.”

  “It’s an interesting theory,” said Madrid stiffly. “But it isn’t true.”

  “Well, perhaps it isn’t. You did warn me, didn’t you? at the last moment.”

  “I did. I begin to regret it.”

  “That wouldn’t spoil the theory. You could have changed your mind – at the last moment.”

  “Why should I have?”

  “Maybe you found you were fonder of me than you realised.”

  “You’re a damnably conceited pig,” said Madrid. “Aren’t you?”

  “Maybe. Maybe my conceit interferes with the clarity of my reasoning. Maybe your brother fixed it up with Snort all by himself. Just as he arranged the death of Dr. Raikes.”

  She moved towards him; some effect of the light had made her cheeks imperceptibly paler. “That isn’t true, either. Otto wouldn’t do such things. And Raikes’ death was an accident.”

  “Snort was your brother’s gun-boy, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.” She hesitated. “That doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “It doesn’t. It’s just an interesting coincidence. Anybody else could have bribed him to kill me. Or your brother might have wanted to make sure I didn’t follow him.”

  Fedora got up and pushed his way past her to the fly of the tent. “If that was the idea, he’s going to be unlucky.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To wash. Then to pack. I’ve got a date with Huysmans, too.”

  She pattered eagerly after him. “Fedora. Let me come with you.”

  “No.”

  “Listen. I don’t understand what’s happened, but I’m sure you’re wrong about Otto. I know why he’s gone without you; and he had no reason for wanting to kill you.”

  Johnny looked sideways at her, but kept on walking. “Why has he gone without me?”

  “Because he feels as I do. We don’t want our father working for any foreign government; not again. We don’t want him mixed up in politics and wars and all that sort of thing. We want him back in his old job – doing no harm to anyone.” Madrid spoke breathlessly, and Johnny slowed his pace slightly. “Can’t you understand that? There must be other people who can work for you people … and just as well.”

  “Do you imagine that that’s what he wants?”

  “Father likes to hunt metals; that’s all that matters to him. He doesn’t mind who he does it for. So if the—”

  “If he doesn’t mind, then why should you? We can offer him full employment and admirable living conditions.” Johnny pulled his sticky shirt a trifle away from his chest. “It’s not as easy as you seem to think. If we don’t find him and take him, then the Americans will, or the Russians, or even the English. You wouldn’t like that much, would you?”

  “The English? I hate the English because they are an aggressive race, fighting anywhere they go. I hate them for what they did to South Africa, and when I thought you were an Englishman I hated you, Fedora. Frankly,” she said with added bitterness, “I don’t think just your being a German makes it any better. I know that England attacked you unfairly in 1939; but now that the war is over, why must you be trying to start another? Why not make the best of a bad job and settle down to peace, as we South Africans had to?”

  They approached the bank of the river; Johnny was unbuttoning his shirt unhurriedly. “One must always struggle for the materials of war,” he said, “in order that the enemy cannot have them. Once we possess them, it doesn’t follow automatically that they’ll be used. That depends on our statesmen, and on the statesmen of other countries. If one believes that those statesmen are good men, then one can do one’s job with a clear conscience.”

  “And you think Hitler was a good man?” said Madrid sarcastically.

  “Hitler is dead,” said Johnny briefly. He stopped at the water’s edge and looked out across the river. The sedges on the far bank moved uneasily, in response to the dawn breeze; in the east, the sky was dyed a sullen and violent red. He took off his belt and then his shirt; dipped his hand in the water and saw the blood drift away in uneasy, spidery whorls.

  “Perhaps when I find your father,” he said “I’ll be able—”

  He caught a sudden movement behind him, much too late. The butt of the pistol impacted on the back of his head with stunning force; he went down on to his hands and knees in the shallow water, groping blindly for his balance. He was vaguely aware of Madrid crouched over him, a dark shape the size of a tree; vaguely, he heard her voice.

  “You shan’t find him,” she said, with a sob at the base of her throat. “You shan’t take him back. I shan’t let you catch up with Otto …”

  The second blow came down like a crushing weight on his skull; their great bat-wings unfolded around him and pulled him into their darkness. He felt gravel under his fingers as the blackness grew complete.

  9

  JOHNNY GRASPED the side of the canoe and pulled himself up into a sitting position. The vehemence of his effort made the canoe rock dangerously, and he heard, as though from a great distance, the slap and gurgle of water against the hull. Great throbs of pain moved out from the back of his head in concentric waves; he groaned, and felt for the bruise with his fingers.

  Then, for the first time, he tried to focus on the middle distance. Th
e sharp light sent aching spears tingling across his retina; the sun was up, hovering low over the hills to the east. Johnny shaded his eyes with his hand and peered stupidly out towards the twin banks of the river, drifting steadily past him; a scene so familiar that it took him a full thirty seconds to realise that anything was wrong. Then, gradually, remembrance returned to him.

  He dipped his hand over the side and, at risk of overturning the canoe again, splashed dollops of dirty water over himself. Drops turned to diamonds by the sun ran glistening over his bare shoulders and down his arms; his hair dripped on to his back. He shook his head, scattering a shower to left and right; then peered blearily about him again.

  He was alone in the canoe, that was plain; and drifting fast down-river. His pistol-belt, with the Colt in its holster, lay at his feet; there was no sign of his bush shirt, nor of any paddles. Johnny looked at his wrist-watch; the time was half past six. He had been lying unconscious for over half an hour, and – presumably – under way for most of that time. Johnny caressed his skull again, and began to swear in a monotonous undertone.

  Half an hour was not a very long stretch of time; he could not have been carried much more than three or four miles. But getting back was not going to be so easy. Even if Madrid had left him a paddle to work with, it would have been almost impossible for him to steer the unwieldy canoe singlehanded against the current; by water, the trip back would take him several hours. By land it would be quicker, but not very much quicker. Two miles an hour would be good going through the swamps and thickets by the river. Madrid had given her brother a good three hours’ extra start; that was what it all boiled down to.

  Johnny teetered forwards on to his knees again, crouching in the bows of the boat, estimated his distance from the northern bank. It was not very far; not more than twenty yards; and there were no signs of any crocodiles in the immediate vicinity. Johnny squeezed his face between his hands, and looked again. He wasn’t feeling particularly in the mood for a swim; but then he wasn’t feeling particularly in the mood for a walk, either, and every second that passed added inexorably to the length of his return journey. Johnny picked up his pistol-belt, buckled down the holster flap securely, and threw it hard towards the bank; paused to note exactly where it fell, then plunged into the river.