It was indeed amazing how free of evil that voice sounded, as it called out, “That will do, lads. Just gather round and I’ll read you the book for the night.”
The voice rolled the r’s and lengthened the o’s in the Scots manner, particularly in the currency common in the slums of Glasgow.
The thrashing and beating stopped. The men rallied loudly to their officer. Almost immediately another voice, also in English but with heavy African inflections, excused itself, “Sorry sah! I swear I saw something crawl along the wall of the dam and drop over the side, but I expect it was some wild animal. Sorry sah!”
“Ach, dinna fash yourself, mon,” the officer replied. “You did the right thing, fore-bye. That lad and his doggie have still not been found. Until he is I want every man-jack of you to keep his eyes as wide open as you have done. That lad, you must remember, has lived here all his life and we know he is uncommonly experienced for his years, and knows the bush as few of us here do. We know he was here last night just before sundown. He and his doggie just could not have vanished into thin air. We’ve just got to find him or he’ll give our show away. I warn you one and all, it’s so important that if we don’t, Chairman Mao back there in the house will have more than one of his pregnant thoughts to give us. Now back to your posts, lads, and keep a sharper look out than before. And you lot there, any old tabby would have told you it’s easier to put out cigarettes than get rid of the smell of tobacco. If there’s any more smoking on this caper tonight, I’ll have you up in front of the Chairman.”
The discomfiture of the guards who had been smoking must have been obvious to the rest of the men because the reprimand was followed by a prolonged giggle, before the pickets made their way back to their posts and what sounded like two other men marched on towards the house. François had just time enough to crawl out into a place from which he could once more see the amber of the open door before it was darkened by the shapes of men passing through, and the glow vanished as the door shut behind them.
François trembled all over with relief. He had to force himself to lose precious minutes so as to calm down and find the heart to go on. One stresses the preciousness of time because, careful and deliberate as his progress had been up to now, it would look like racing compared to the rate his circumstances were about to impose upon him. He now had to crawl out of his shelter into the vegetable garden, unseen and without noise. For the men reprimanded by an officer who, judging by the responses they absolutely respected, were certain to be more watchful than ever. Once his way out was chosen, he would be compelled to go forward to the house not in feet but in inches.
He had a number of routes from which he could choose. He knew them all well enough to find and follow them blindfold, for he had used them and observed them so many times in the past that it was almost as if his memory of them was tangible, stretched out like his hand upwards in the dark before his eyes, and they lay there distinct like the lines in his palm waiting to be read by an expert palmist. He considered them all closely before finally deciding on the deepest and most direct one; the way, significantly enough, that was the lifeline among them because it was the main irrigation ditch leading from the reservoir right to the heart of the garden. It had the advantage of starting immediately among the shadows against the reservoir sluice, had walls on either side, not as high as those of the great furrow leading from the river, but substantial enough, and a floor which he was certain, despite the fact that no irrigating had been done that day, would be sufficiently wet to prevent its surface from grating or scraping underneath him as he crawled along it.
That decided, he acted at once, before delay could add to the loss of courage from which he was suffering and endanger his resolution. Using the cover close to the reservoir in order to test out precisely what kind of crawling and at what rate made the least noise, François went out along the ditch on his stomach until he was well clear of the protective shadow of trees, bushes and walls. He was deeply disturbed at how clear and transparent the night appeared to be after the darkness which had sheltered him so effectively. It was so clear indeed that some two hundred yards beyond the place where he was crawling, he could see at the far end of the garden the “phantom” glimmer of the white of the walls and gables of his home and knew that if anything ever forced him to leave the furrow, the eyes of the sentries protected by the shadows of their posts could hardly fail to spot-him. For a moment, it seemed as if his resolution would be crushed between two great irresistibles: on one hand a paralysis of fear and presentiment of the impossibility of his effort, and the urge to hasten through that dangerous zone of comparative light as fast as he could, even if he were somewhat noisy in the process.
Fortunately he had been schooled by men who believed that all creative training is meant to provide human beings with reflexes of behaviour which will rescue them in moments of crisis when reason and courage tend to desert them. He found himself guided not so much by a rational self as by all the experience and love ’Bamuthi and Mopani had put into his upbringing. This was so great that he ceased being afraid when he came to the heart of the garden. There he paused at a great crossway of lesser irrigation furrows leading away to all quarters of the garden, right up against the first of the many large beds of tomatoes. He realised how well and how far he had come without a sound and found the power to reason with himself again, while recovering his breath, because crawling in that way, however slowly, is one of the most exhausting exercises of which a human being is capable.
That done, he rose on his elbows to look about him. The white of the walls of his home was far more pronounced, the gables and the clear-cut line of the long thatched roof were black and distinct against the star sheen. Below and to the side of them, the door leading into the garden was still firmly shut, for no glow or flicker of light was visible there.
He looked back behind him. He searched the garden on both sides of him and saw clearly that it was empty of human beings. He noticed that in front of him the tomato beds had been trampled all over, presumably in the course of the attack, and that even the ditch ahead of him was heaped over with crushed and tangled tomato bushes. It was a complication, he felt bitterly, he might have been spared because if he were going to get on and underneath them as he had to, he would have to go even more slowly than before to avoid noise. He would have liked a longer rest, but this gratuitous complication decided him to move on at once. His one consolation was that once he edged his way underneath the broken tomato bushes, no one who came to inspect the garden would have much chance of discovering him in the shadow there.
It seemed many long hours, though it could hardly have been more than a quarter of one, before he painfully came to the end of the ditch up against a smaller sluice gate. Here he looked over into another empty water furrow which ran parallel to the walls of the courtyard and stables as well as the side of his house. He was within knocking distance of his home.
Very slowly he slid the gate without noise out of its frame, laid it softly in the bottom of the ditch behind him, and crawled forward into the furrow. There in the shadow of the high wide walls he paused once more to listen with an ear against their base for any murmur or vibration of sound that might be behind them. He heard nothing at all. He looked up and along the walls in case any light showed but the night there was as deprived of light as it was of sound. Again he was faced with several choices of action all of which appeared extremely hazardous.
For instance, he felt it would be fatal to try going through the door of the garden. He neither knew what might be waiting on the far side nor could ignore the fact that once he opened the door, his shadow would be as visible in the amber glow as those of his enemies had been. He dismissed climbing over the wall as he knew he could do from half a dozen points in the garden where trees provided him convenient perches. None of those would do because he had to remember the greater glow of amber which he had seen from afar, also all the many eyes that might be awake and wide open within its circumference, and the fa
ct that nothing could loom so great and so distinct against it as the silhouette of the human body meeting it on a skyline. There was another gate in the wall far to the east but he rejected that as well because it would bring him out into the gravelled drive passing by and round the flank of the house to come out by the front door.
There were other possibilities as well which were dismissed, and helped to prove that he really had only a single choice: that was to try a wooden half-door, half-window, level with the surface of the garden and used in summer to air the deep, vast cellar that ran the whole length of the basement of the house. The cellar was not only a cellar but a kind of store room for all sorts of supplies that had to be kept in the cool and were used directly in the house. Because of this, the cellar had one set of stone steps leading up to a door giving on to the big pantry, between the kitchen and the dining-room. But the main entrance, where the supplies could be carried from the trucks straight into the cellar, was at the end farthest away from him.
From where he lay, the half-door appeared tightly pressed against the smooth white wall. That did not perturb him; it had been firmly shut against him on countless occasions and over the years he had perfected a technique of opening it. This had been inspired by the fact that among the supplies in the cool were many bags of raisins and other dried fruits which came in vast quantities every year from his cousins in the far south. In a world without sweets, those dehydrated and crystallised fruits were the most tempting delicacies to François and his Matabele companions. Even the generous Ousie-Johanna was found guilty of distributing them in a miserly manner. Besides, there was always the incentive of getting the better of authority, however beloved, which had made François ultimately an expert at entry of this kind. Crawling up to the door now with his hunting knife in his hand, he could feel how ironic it was that as a child he had thought it dangerous, for if dangerous were the word for it then, what was he to call it now?
Though it was years since he had last forced this particular cellar entrance, he had forgotten none of the art. Deftly he worked his knife under the edge of the door, until it was under the loose, upright bolt in its shallow socket, and lifted it gently clear of the sill. Gently as he did it, the bolt groaned slightly in a way François thought a watchful person could not fail to hear. So he waited until he was quite certain that the sound had not travelled any distance, before he pulled the door slowly towards him, far more slowly than even he had expected to be necessary, because the hinges were somewhat rusty and on the verge of complaining too.
Careful to swing the door not an inch wider than necessary, he held it there while he looked all round him to make certain he had not been seen. In that clear star-sheen, trembling like distilled water in the dark over the garden, nothing moved at all. Quickly he slid over the sill, until he was resting his hands on the huge keg of brandy which, as the result of a visit to the cellar only the night before to fetch some wine and brandy for Sir James’s return, he knew was standing there. He was then able to pull the rest of his body after him, keeping one foot on the sill so the door could not slam, turn over and seat himself on top of the keg. He bent over towards the door, put a hand on the bolt, brought it back into position and pushed the bolt home.
CHAPTER FOUR
An Amen of Annihilation
THE PHYSICAL DARKNESS around him was as great as in the cave. It could only mean that all the other exits and entrances into the cellar were firmly shut. His problem now would be not to stumble over anything in the cellar and raise a clatter on his way to the steps leading up into the pantry. So convinced was he that the cellar was perfectly screened against the outside world and that if there were any human beings within it his entrance would have already compelled them to give themselves away, that he had no hesitation in striking a match and looking around him as he held the flame cupped in his hands.
The light was of the briefest but long enough to show him that a number of the wine racks which when he last saw them had been full of bottles of choice wine and brandy, were now empty. The enemy obviously had celebrated their victory liberally and should be sleeping soundly. As the match died out, he struck another and quickly made his way to the steps leading up into the pantry, noticing that the door was not shut but drawn to from without, for he not only saw a glint of light on the metal against the lintels but heard a faint murmur of voices beyond.
Reaching the bottom step, he sat down, laid his rifle carefully against it in a position in which if necessary, he was certain to find it quickly, took off his soft ankle boots, placed them next to the rifle, and then, hunting knife between his teeth, went cat-wise up the steps to the pantry door.
He was right. The door was not shut. Without hesitating he drew it towards him, because unlike the one which gave on to the garden, it was in constant use, well-oiled and not given to complaint. He had it barely a foot open and was getting ready to crawl round the edge into the shadow of the great flour-bins and cupboards, with shelves piled high above them, full of jars of conserved fruit, jams, bottled vegetables, pickles and all the scores of things they used to see them through their comparatively barren winters, when he saw a distinct glow of light on the tiled floor and heard that murmur of voices more pronounced than ever. It could only mean that the door between the pantry and pantry hall which gave on to the kitchen on one side and dining-room on the other, was open as well, and that the voices were coming either from the kitchen or dining-room, if not both. His need for caution was greater than ever. Yet provided there was nobody within the long pantry itself, he should at the least get unobserved to the shelter of the cupboards which lined the walls on either side of the far door. He was about to enter the pantry when the dark was suddenly and violently illuminated by a brilliant light falling on the ceiling above him. Shocked, he pulled back into the black cellar.
Before he had time to question the cause of the light, the noise of a truck, approaching fast from the direction of Silverton Hill, told him what it was: headlights piercing the unshuttered windows of the pantry. Shaken but reassured, François got to his feet, pushed the door to so that there was only a crack wide enough for him to peer through. He saw then why the window was not shuttered. In the brilliant light playing on ceiling and walls, he looked on a tall wide window, glass shattered and frame splintered, presumably by rifle- and machine-gun fire. The shelves immediately opposite him held only shattered bottles and jars, their contents scattered over the tops of the cupboards below, and the tiled floor itself covered with fragments of broken glass.
For a moment, it looked as if he would have to abandon entering the house from that end, because he could not possibly walk in his socks over such a floor without injuring the soles of feet he needed as never before, and even if he returned for his boots, the broken glass would undoubtedly grind and crunch underfoot so much that he would certainly be heard. By this time the light from the oncoming truck had lit up the pantry so widely that he saw it as if by daylight. Thank Heaven, the damage was merely in that one corner by the window and he would have just room enough, provided he kept to his side of the room, to cross the jagged fragments of glass on a floor two inches or more thick with layers of jams and preserves. He reached this conclusion as the lights of the truck vanished and he heard it pull up abruptly in the courtyard, almost underneath the shattered window.
He heard the doors of the truck being flung open, men jumping out and then a familiar voice bantering in that maddeningly calm, deliberate and ironic tone that appeared fundamental to it, “So there you are at last, my guid officer and gentleman of France. And not one wee bit too soon. Even our philosophic Chairman’s philosophy is looking somewhat down at heel on your account.”
The answer was in fluent English, though with a marked French accent. “Unfortunately, it was not a philosophic exercise on which I was engaged, mon cher.”
There was enough of an implication of a rebuke in the remark to make the Scottish voice say, rather regretfully, “As if! dinna ken that. Aye, here too I’ve been
wishing that we had a little more philosophy and less action. But how did you get on?”
“What is it that you would wish? We killed them all as you, I expect, did here, but it took all day. There were so many of them and they scattered and hid in so many places, that we were not done until sundown.”
“The lot?” The Scottish voice sharpened noticeably. “What do you mean by that?”
The Frenchman was obviously finding the questioning distasteful and said curtly, “I pray it of you to excuse. You will hear the history soon enough when I speak of it to our comrade-in-chief inside. All that is necessary to say now is that it was long and hard work and . . .”
“Work! You call it just work?” The Scottish voice lost its banter and rose on a note of mixed surprise and condemnation. “It’s the understatement of centuries. Guid God, mon . . .”
He was interrupted in his turn, rather wearily by the Frenchman. With a bleak note of deprivation in his voice that touched even François’s unbearably tense and pre-determined heart, he said, “Yes, work, mon cher, nothing but work. The only work I have ever known. I wish . . .” The voice paused, rejected the longing as the life and its owner must have rejected it, and resumed, “Yes, work, and such hard work today that I have a hunger formidable and a thirst sensational to quench.”
“And so you shall. So you shall,” the Scottish voice replied more understandingly as they walked past the window, so close that François heard the man being patted on the back before the Scottish voice added, “I tell you, mon. There’s wine enough for even a French palate waiting inside. More bottles indeed to choose from than even our great Chairman has thoughts for our future.”
A Far Off Place Page 8
