The Delta

by Tony Park

  Stirling drove on through the dry sand and bush. As if the Americans weren’t annoying enough, Stirling was also worried that Coyote Sam seemed to have been flirting with his girlfriend, Tracey Hawthorne, over dinner the previous evening. Tracey was seventeen years younger than Stirling and just the thought of her firm, slender young body was enough to make him stir. Chapman had talked to her all night and Tracey had doted on him, fetching him coffee and insisting he try an Amarula Cream liqueur after they’d had dessert. Tracey had first come to the lodge as a guest with her parents, and on the third night of that stay Stirling had succumbed to her increasingly unsubtle advances. Stirling had had sex with many female guests at the various lodges where he had worked in Moremi, but since returning to Xakanaxa as the manager he’d made a point to avoid the advances of amorous clients. ‘Khaki Fever’ was a well-documented malaise in Africa, where visitors fell for their handsome safari guides. Some lodges banned it and others turned a blind eye to it, and as a manager Stirling knew he needed to lead by example.

  That was until Tracey arrived. Her peaches and cream complexion camouflaged a voracious sexual appetite that bordered on predatory. What Tracey wanted, Tracey got, and once she had set her sights on Stirling his resistance had crumbled. At the end of her first trip she’d promised to return and he’d said he would be glad to have her come visit. He’d thought it was just a fling, but three months later Tracey had returned. A month later he’d managed to find her a job as an assistant food and beverage manager, and she had moved into his tent.

  ‘Stirling?’ Cheryl-Ann squawked.

  ‘Sorry, couldn’t hear you over the engine. What was that?’

  ‘I said, are we going to see any water today?’

  ‘Coming right up, ma’am.’

  There was still water at camp, in front of the luxury safari tents where the film crew was billeted, but even in the main channel the level was down lower than Stirling had ever seen it. Cheryl-Ann had ordered animals drinking from a river, and that was hard to film at camp, where the shores and river islands were choked with pampas grass that stood taller than a man.

  ‘Here you go.’ Stirling switched off the engine and reached for his binoculars.

  ‘I don’t see any water,’ Cheryl-Ann said.

  In front of them was a seemingly dry waterhole, about the length and half the width of a football field. ‘Look there.’

  ‘Where, Stirling?’ Sam asked, scanning the grey surface. ‘It just looks like mud to me.’

  ‘Mostly mud, with a little ground water still seeping up underneath. This should be a foot deep in water at least at this time of year. Check the movement, in the middle.’

  ‘I see it,’ Sam said.

  ‘Where?’ asked Gerry.

  ‘It’s like a moving island. What is that?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Hippo. He’s had to bury himself in the mud to protect himself from the sun. He has to stay like that all day, until he can come out in the cool of night to graze. That hippo has moved here from the pan where he usually lives, which is ten kilometres away. He may make it to the river, but hippo are very territorial animals and the pods in the main channel might not like him coming onto their turf. He’ll most likely die before the next rains.’

  Wa-hoo, something called.

  ‘What was that?’ Cheryl-Ann asked.

  ‘Baboon,’ Stirling said without looking over. Moments later, a troop of primates, about forty in all, crossed the open sandy ground where elephants had trampled or eaten the grass and other vegetation that once fringed the waters.

  Stirling raised his binoculars. ‘They’re desperate to drink here. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘I don’t see any predators nearby,’ Ray, the cameraman, said from the back of the truck.

  ‘Get your camera out and start filming, Ray,’ Stirling said.

  ‘Hey,’ Cheryl-Ann said, ‘Ray films when I tell him to and not …’

  ‘Quickly,’ Sam said, watching the baboons intently. ‘Something else just moved out there.’

  Gerry was already climbing down from the Land Rover, helping Ray by setting up the tripod. He plugged his microphone cable in as Ray started recording.

  The column of baboons was headed by a large male who paced up and down the sludgy edge of the pan looking for the cleanest spot from which to drink. Through the observers’ binoculars it all looked unpalatable, even for animals, but the primate lowered his doglike snout to the ooze and started lapping. Soon the rest of his troop had fanned out on either side of them and began tentatively sucking up what moisture they could.

  ‘Check,’ Stirling whispered.

  ‘Hey,’ said Sam, ‘it’s a …’

  Stirling felt the vehicle rock as the ear-piercing shriek made Cheryl-Ann start in her seat. The crocodile, like the hippo, had been buried to the point of near invisibility in the mud of the waterhole. He knew the spot other animals would still consider clean enough to drink from and had positioned himself accordingly. The crocodile had launched himself from the ooze and locked his jaws around the leg of a young baboon.

  The infant wailed hysterically and scrambled in the mud and dirt with its tiny hands as the croc started reversing back into the ooze. The male baboon gave his warning bark again and the rest of the troop fled screaming from the waterhole, but the leader stayed. He waded through thick slime to where the youngster still yelped and thrashed.

  ‘Please tell me you’re getting this,’ Cheryl-Ann whispered.

  Ray had his eye pressed to the rubber cup of the camera’s viewfinder. He raised a thumb over his head as the male baboon grasped the juvenile’s hand and began tugging.

  ‘Sam, start talking. Make me cry,’ Cheryl-Ann said.

  Sam climbed down from the Land Rover and crouched beside Ray and Gerry, his face near the microphone. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and thought for a few seconds. Stirling looked at the crew and shook his head.

  ‘Here in the Okavango Delta the drama of life and death is played out every day. Sometimes it’s not pretty to watch, but that’s the way the circle of life turns. Family ties are strong in a baboon troop and this dominant male will risk his own life to try and save his offspring …’

  Sam paused as the young baboon’s wails punctuated his monologue. Half a dozen other members of the troop had stopped their flight and turned back. They clustered around their leader and, grunting and barking, also tried to grab hold of the hapless youngster.

  ‘Baboons,’ Sam continued, ‘will chase off a leopard or cheetah if they discover one of the cats in their territory, but can their fearless devotion to their offspring defeat a predator that has had little need to evolve since prehistoric times?’

  One of the baboons had jumped on the crocodile’s back, but the reptile, who had exposed two metres of body length with still more hidden in the muck, shook the primate off with a flick of its tail. The dominant male baboon gave a whoop of what seemed like grief and frustration as the croc tore his baby from his grasp.

  ‘What we’ve witnessed here,’ Sam continued, ad libbing, ‘may well be more than the death of a single creature. It may be the beginning of the end of this once green wildlife Eden, which at this time of year should be crisscrossed with clear water channels and rivulets, where animals like that tiny baboon might otherwise have drunk in safety.’

  Stirling frowned. The woman was the bitch from hell, but the himbo, Coyote Sam, might just be smart enough to take some advice.

  ‘Sam, don’t pre-empt the end of the documentary before we’ve already begun shooting it,’ Cheryl-Ann said. ‘We don’t know for sure this river’s going to dry up.’

  ‘Beautiful stuff, man,’ Ray said quietly.

  ‘How was your game drive, Sam? Did you get lots of lovely video?’ Tracey Hawthorne’s khaki shorts were so short they might better have been classed as swimwear, or underwear, Sam thought as he eased his sweaty body down from the Land Rover.

  ‘Sweet.’

  Tracey giggled. ‘Brunch will be served soon, but yo
u must tell me all about your morning before I let you go freshen up.’

  ‘I could use a shower first.’

  ‘Dip in the pool would be better. I’ve just been in. It’s divine.’ Tracey glanced downwards and folded her arms in front of her chest demurely, appearing to have just noticed that her wet bikini was showing through her white tank top.

  Sam had noticed the wet patches, and her nipples, though he had tried hard not to stare at them, or at the tiny jewel in her bellybutton when her top rode up. ‘I don’t have my trunks on.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’re in Africa now. Jump in with your cargo shorts on.’

  Stirling tramped up the wooden ramp that led to the thatched reception area at Xakanaxa Camp. ‘Sam says he needs a shower, Tracey. Leave the poor man alone.’

  Sam turned. The camp manager and head guide had given him shit all morning. ‘You know, Tracey, I might just take you up on that idea of a swim, on one condition.’

  ‘What’s that, Mr Chapman?’

  ‘That you join me for a quick dip, Miss Hawthorne.’

  Tracey looked at her watch. ‘Well, I am on duty, but brunch isn’t on for another fifteen minutes. I’m game if you are.’

  Another Land Rover with two other tourists on board, a German couple Sam had posed for pictures with and signed autographs for the previous evening, pulled up at reception. Sam saw Stirling glare at him, then turn and walk over to the newly arrived game-viewing vehicle. Someone had to greet the returning guests and Sam imagined it was Tracey’s job. Sam began unbuttoning his bush shirt as he followed Tracey’s hypnotic hips across the sandy courtyard that separated reception from the common area of the lodge. Spread out along the banks of the main channel of the Khwai River were the dining area, with a long heavy wooden table where all meals were taken communally, a lounge area with coffee tables and deep, worn leather lounges, a self-service bar and, at the far right-hand end, a small plunge pool, no bigger in circumference than a circular waterbed.

  Sam unlaced and pulled off his hiking boots and socks while Tracey, on the opposite side of the pool, slipped off her rubber flip-flops and pulled the damp tank top over her head. As he shrugged off his shirt she unzipped her shorts and let them fall to the ground. She kicked them off with a pointed toe and smiled at him.

  She stood on the opposite side of the pool to him wearing a white bikini that dazzled against the pale buttery tan of her skin. ‘I was nearly dry. Now you’re going to get me all wet again, Coyote Sam.’

  THREE

  Sonja woke up feeling like she’d spent a week in the kickboxing ring. It hurt even to open her eyelids, so she closed them again, carefully.

  She reached up and found a wall, made of plastic or fibreglass, less than a metre above her head. When she kicked her feet out her toe stubbed something. She blinked a couple of times. It was gloomy, though she was aware of weak light above her. She craned her head back and saw a dull glow behind a translucent blue window. Her right arm ached in the crook of her elbow and when she touched it with her left hand she felt the tube. She grabbed it and ripped the long needle from her arm, gasping with shock. She was inside something – a vehicle, her brain slowly transmitted back to her. She had to escape. She rolled painfully onto her side, but when she tried to sit up she felt nauseous and banged her head on the roof. Cursing, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand, but her right leg buckled under her.

  An onslaught of light blinded her as she dropped painfully to one knee. She crumpled, but then felt herself caught by strong arms.

  ‘Steady, steady, girl.’

  Sonja swallowed hard, forcing back the bile.

  ‘Back into bed with you, young—’

  ‘Outside,’ she gagged. ‘I need some fresh air.’

  ‘OK, OK, let me help you. I’m not here to hurt you.’

  She stiffened in his arms. The accent was from another world, another time in her life, and it frightened her. Soothing as the tone was, the off-kilter vowels with their jagged edges were from Ireland. Northern Ireland. Ulster.

  ‘What … what do you want with me?’

  ‘Sit. Sit yerself down.’

  Sonja shook her head but did as she was told. She lowered herself and found she was sitting on the floor of a Land Cruiser, at its split rear doors, with her legs out on a set of fold-down stairs. The sun was adding to her pain and she raised a hand to her eyes.

  ‘I’d just gone to the gents. You’ve been out of it all night, and most of yesterday afternoon. Lost a lot of blood, you did.’

  Sonja looked up at the man. He had his back to the morning sun, and its rays shone through his wild, unbrushed grey hair like a halo, preventing her from seeing his face.

  ‘You should lie down again.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Over here then.’ He took her arm and placed it over his shoulder and around his neck and supported her as she stood.

  She was too shaky to resist. Panic rose in her chest as she suffered the soldier’s special nightmare of suddenly realising she was unarmed. ‘Where’s my … my stuff?’

  He snorted back a laugh. ‘You’ll be talking about your M4 and your Glock, I suppose? Safely hidden away, along with the spare ammo and the fragmentation grenade. You’re the most heavily armed backpacker I’ve ever come across.’

  She let him lead her to a padded camping chair, low slung and covered in green canvas. It was a safari lounger and he lowered her into it carefully. She looked around at the thick tangle of bush and vines that separated this camp site from the others around it. Through the natural camouflage she noticed bell tents and open-sided tour vehicles. A fish eagle called nearby, the piercing, high-pitched rise and fall telling her there was water nearby.

  ‘Tea?’

  She nodded. He crouched in front of her and prodded and blew a mound of white coals into flame. On a braai grid above the fire was a battered black kettle. ‘Where are we? Botswana?’

  He nodded. ‘Kasane. This place is called the Chobe Safari Lodge. We’re not far from where you collapsed, on the side of the road. I found you near the border. Did you come from Zimbabwe?’

  Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips and started to speak, but as the fog slowly cleared from her brain she closed her mouth.

  ‘I don’t need to know,’ he smiled.

  He was about twenty years older than she, nearly sixty, she reckoned. His body was lean under his tight T-shirt and his arms sinewy but muscled. He had blue eyes that glittered when he looked at her, but even when he smiled his mouth had that hard set she’d seen in so many men. It was as if they could never bring themselves to show true joy, because each time they tried, some memory or other returned, unbidden and unwelcome.

  She touched the bandage around her right thigh and saw the red spots. ‘My leg … what happened to it?’

  ‘Through and through. If I’m not mistaken, a 7.62; the AK-47 being the preferred weapon of most shooters in this part of the world. I’ve seen worse wounds, but like I said, you lost a fair bit of a blood. Also, one side of you is covered in abrasions.’

  ‘The bike …’

  ‘Makes sense. I’ve also seen those types of grazes before.’ He prodded the fire, whose flames were now licking the old teapot. ‘I had a 1969 Triumph Bonneville when I was a wee bit younger and I came off that thing more than once. I also plucked a few fragments of metal out of your side. You wouldn’t have been anywhere near a grenade explosion on your holiday, I suppose?’

  She ignored the raised eyebrows. ‘My stuff …’

  ‘Aye, we’ll get to that soon enough. But you might consider a thank you, first. I kept that IV drip of saline for emergencies. You seemed to qualify as one.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He nodded. Steam hissed from the kettle and he poured darkly stewed tea into two enamelled metal mugs. ‘NATO standard?’

  She nodded. ‘Please.’

  ‘Aha!’

  Sonja frowned theatrically. ‘Oh dear. You got me. Or was it the assault rifle a
nd the grenade that gave me away?’

  ‘Well, I was in the intelligence corps for quite a few years before I retired. Tactical questioning of prisoners was one of my fortes, if I do say so myself.’

  ‘Very intelligent.’

  He ignored the sarcasm and heaped two teaspoons of sugar into each mug and poured in generous dollops of long-life Sterimilk. He handed her one. Two sugars and milk – NATO standard, in British Army slang, had told him she had a military background, but not much more.

  He blew on his tea and took a tentative sip. ‘BBC World Service is carrying news this morning of a failed attempt on the life of the President of Zimbabwe. Seemed it happened not far from here, just across the border near Victoria Falls. The big man always likes to say the Americans and British are out to get him, and the so-called assassin apparently used a US military antitank weapon to attack the presidential convoy. Bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, I would have thought.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Of course,’ the grey-haired man continued, ‘the radio didn’t say the Zimbabwean police and army were looking for a woman.’

  He waited for her reply, but none came. ‘It’s Kurtz, isn’t it, if I’m not mistaken?’

  She sipped some more tea.

  ‘Susie, Suzette … something equally German if I remember correctly. I was at Aldershot when they flew you back from Ulster for the board of inquiry. You won’t remember me, though.’

  Sonja was grateful for him picking her up out of the dirt, but she was suspicious of his prying and the fact he was from Northern Ireland, and she really needed to put some distance between them. He was fucking with her, and she was in no mood for games.

  ‘Sonja! Yes, that’s it. I thought it was you, even before you woke. You haven’t aged much in, what, eighteen years?’