The Seventh Scroll tes-2

by Wilbur Smith

  a blue rampart.

  So far what you read in the book is a fairly faithful rendition of the

  scrolls, but at this point," she tapped the open page, we come to

  Duraid's red herring. In his description of the foothills-'

  Before she could continue, Nicholas interjected, "I remember thinking

  when I originally read it that it didn't accurately describe the area

  where the Blue Nile emerges from the Ethiopian highlands. There are no

  foothills. There is only the sheer western escarpment of the massif. The

  river comes out of it like a snake out of its hole. Whoever wrote that

  description doesn't know the course of the Blue Nile."

  "Do you know the area?" Royan asked, and he laughed and nodded.

  "Alhen I was younger and even more stupid than I am now, I conceived the

  grandiose plan of boating the Abbay gorge from Lake Tana down to the dam

  at Roseires in the Sudan. The Abbay is the Ethiopian name for the Blue

  Nile., "Why did you want to do that?"

  "Because it had never been done before. Major Cheesman, the British

  consul, had a shot at it in 1932, and nearly drowned himself. I thought

  I could make a film, and write a book about the voyage and earn myself a

  fortune , from the royalties. I talked my father into financing the

  expedition. It was the kind of mad escapade that appealed to him. He

  even wanted to join the expedition. I studied the whole course of the

  Abbay river, not only on maps. I also bought myself an old Cessna 180

  and flew down the gorge, five hundred miles from Lake Tana to the dam.

  As I said, I was twenty-one years old and crazy."

  "What happened?" She was fascinated. Duraid had never told her about

  this, but it was the type of adventure that she would have expected this

  man to launch into.

  "I recruited eight of my friends from Sandhurst, and we devoted our

  Christmas holidays to the attempt. It was a fiasco. We lasted two days

  on those wild waters. The gorge is the most hellish corner of this earth

  that I know of It's almost twice as deep and as rugged as the Grand

  Canyon of the Colorado river in Arizona. It smashed up our kayaks before

  we had covered twenty miles out of the five hundred.

  We had to abandon all our equipment and climb the walls of the gorge to

  reach civilization again."

  He looked serious for a moment, "I lost two members of our party. Bobby

  Palmer was drowned, and Tim Marshall fell on the cliffs. We were not

  even able to recover their bodies. They are still down there somewhere.

  I had to tell their parents-' he broke off as he remembered the agony of

  it.

  "Has anybody ever succeeded in navigating the Blue Nile gorge?"-she

  asked, to distract him.

  "Yes. I went back a few years later. This time not as leader, but as a

  very junior member of the official British Armed Forces Expedition. It

  took the army, the navy and the air force to beat that river."

  She stared at him with a feeling of awe. He had actually rafted the

  Abbay. It was as though she had been led to him by some strange fate.

  Duraid was right. There bably no man in the world better qualified for

  the was pro work in hand.

  "So you know as much as anybody about the real the gorge. I will try to

  give you a general nature of indication of what Taita actually set down

  in the seventh scroll. Unfortunately this section of the scroll had

  suffered some damage and Duraid and I were obliged to extrapolate from

  parts of the text. You will have to tell me how this agrees with your

  own knowledge of the terrain."

  "Go ahead, he invited her.

  "Taita described the escarpment very much the -way you did, as a sheer

  wall from which the river emerged.

  They were forced to leave their chariots, which were unable to cover the

  steep and rugged terrain of the canyon. They were forced to go forward

  on foot, leading the pack horses.

  Soon the gorge grew so steep and dangerous that they lost, which fell

  from the wild goat tracks some of these animal they were following and

  plunged into the river far below.

  This did not deter them and they pressed on at the orders of Prince

  Memnon."

  "I can see it exactly as he describes it. It's a fearsome bit of

  countryside."

  "Taita then describes coming to a series of obstacles, which he

  describes as "steps". Duraid and I could not decide with certainty what

  these were. But our best guess was that they were waterfalls."

  "No shortage of those in the Abbay gorge, either," Nicholas nodded.

  "This is the important part of his testimony. Taita tells us that after

  twenty days' travel up the gorge they came upon the "second step". It

  was here that the prince received a fortuitous message from his dead

  father, in the form of a dream, in which he chose this as the site of

  his own tomb.

  Taita tells us that they travelled no further. If we are able to

  determine what it was that stopped them, that would give us an accurate

  measurement of just how far into the gorge they penetrated."

  "Before we can go any further we will need maps and satellite

  photographs of the mountains, and I will have to go over my expedition

  notes and diary," Nicholas decided "I try to keep my reference library

  up-to-date, and so we should have satellite photographs and the most

  recent maps on file here in the museum. If they are Mrs. Street is the

  one to find them."

  He stood up and stretched, "I will dig out my diaries this evening and

  read over them. My great-grandfather also hunted and collected in

  Ethiopia in the last century. I know he crossed the Blue Nile near Debra

  Markos in 1890something. I'll get out his notes as well. They are

  preserved in our archives. The old boy may have written something there

  that could help us."

  He walked with her to the old green Land Rover in the car park, and as

  she started the engine he told her through the open window, "I still

  think that you should stay over here at the Hall. It must be an

  hour-and-a-half's drive across to Brandsbury - each way that's three

  hours a day. We are going to have a lot of work to do before we can even

  think of leaving for Africa."

  "What would people think?" she asked, as she let out the clutch.

  "I have never given a damn about people," he called after her. "What

  time will I see you tomorrow?"

  I have to stop off to see the doctor in York. He is going to take the

  stitches out of my arm. I won't be here before eleven," she stuck her

  head out of the window to yell back at him.

  The wind tossed her dark hair around her face. His fancy had always run

  towards dark-haired women. Rosalind had had that mysterious Eastern

  look. He felt guilty and disloyal making the comparison, but the memory

  of Royan was hard to shake off.

  She was the first woman who had interested him since Rosalind had gone.

  The admixture of her blood drew him.

  She was exotic enough to pique his taste for. the oriental, but English

  enough to speak his language and understand his sense of humour. She was

  educated and knowledgeable about those things that interested him, an
d

  he admired her spirit. Usually Eastern women were trained from birth to

  be self-effacing and compliant. This one was different.

  eorgina had phoned her doctor in York to make an appointment to have the

  stitches removed from Royan's arm. They left after breakfast from the

  cottage in Brandsbury. Georgina was driving and Magic sat between them

  on the bench seat.

  As they turned into the village street, Royan noticed a large MAN truck

  parked down near the post office, but she thought no more about it.

  Once they were out in the countryside they found there were patches of

  heavy fog that in places reduced visibility to thirty yards, but

  Georgina made no concessions to the weather, and sent the Land Rover

  rattling and whining through it at the top of its speed, which Royan

  reflected thankfully was on the right side of sixty miles an hour.

  She glanced over her shoulder to check the road behind them, and saw

  that the MAN truck was following them, Only the cab rose above the sea

  of low mist that surrounded it like the conning tower of a submarine.

  Even as she watched it, a bank of fog intervened and swallowed it up.

  She turned back to listen to her mother.

  "This government is a troop of incompetent nincompoops." Georgina

  squinted her eyes against the smoke from the cigarette that dangled from

  her lips. She drove singlehanded, stroking Magic's flowing silken ear

  with her free hand, "I don't mind ministers boiling themselves into a

  stupor, but when they start fiddling around with my pension I get really

  mad." Her mother's pension from the foreign service was her sole source

  of income, and it wasn't much.

  "You don't truly want a Labour government, now tell the truth, Mummy,'

  Royan teased her. Her mother had always been the arch Conservative.

  Georgina wavered, and then avoided the choice, "All I say is, bring back

  Maggie."

  Royan turned slightly in her seat and glanced through the dirty rear

  window again. The truck was still behind them, looming out of the fog

  and the trail of blue exhaust smoke that Georgina was laying behind her

  like the vapour trail of a jet aircraft. Up until now it had hung back,

  but suddenly it accelerated up behind them.

  "I think he wants to pass you," Royan told Georgina mildly.

  The massive bonnet of the truck was only twenty feet from their rear

  bumper. The radiator was emblazoned with the chrome logo "MAN' and stood

  taller than the cab of the Land Rover, so that she could not see the

  face of the driver from where she sat.

  "Everybody wants to pass me," lamented Georgina.

  "Story of my life." She held the centre of the narrow road doggedly.

  Royan glanced back again, and saw that the truck was creeping still

  closer. It filled the rear window completely.

  The driver declutched and revved the gigantic engine menacingly.

  "You' better give over. I think he means business."

  "Let him wait,' Georgina grunted around her cigarette butt. "Patience is

  a virtue. Anyway, can't let him through here. There is a narrow stone

  bridge ahead of us. Know this stretch of road like the way to my own

  bathroom."

  At that moment the truck-driver sounded his klaxon so close that it was

  deafening. Magic jumped up on the rear seat and barked in outrage.

  "Stupid bastard," Georgina swore bitterly. "What does he think he is

  playing at? Write down his number plate. I am going to report him to the

  York police."

  "His plates are covered with mud. Can't make it out, but it looks like a

  continental registration. German, I think."

  As if the driver had heard her protest he slowed slightly and fell back

  until a gap of twenty yards opened between the two vehicles. Royan had

  swivelled right round in the seat to watch him.

  "That's better," Georgina said smugly. "Ruddy Hun learning some

  manners." She peered ahead through the fog, "There is the bridge For the

  first time Royan was able to see up into the driver's cab of the truck.

  The driver wore a balactava helmet that covered all but his eyes and

  nose with dark blue wool. It gave him a sinister and evil aspect.

  "Look outV Royan screamed suddenly. "He is coming straight at us!" The

  engine beat of the great truck rose to a bellow that engulfed them like

  the sound of a gale-driven sea. For a moment Royan saw'nothing but

  glittering steel and then the front of the truck smashed into them from

  behind.

  She was thrown half over the back of her seat by the impact. She dragged

  herself up and saw that the truck had picked them up like a fox with a

  bird in its jaws. It carried the Land Rover forward on the steel bull

  bars that protected the shining chromed radiator.

  Georgina wrestled with the wheel, trying to maintain control, but the

  effort was futile. "Can't hold her. The bridge! Try and get clear-'

  Royan hit the quick-release buckle on her safety-belt and reached for

  the door handle. The stone walls of the bridge were racing towards them

  at a terrifying pace. The Land Rover was slewing across the road,

  completely out of control.

  The door burst open in Royan's grip, but she could not push it all the

  way before the Land Rover was flung into the solid stonework columns

  that guarded the approaches PI to the bridge, The two women screamed in

  unison as the vehicle crumpled, and the impact hurled them forward. The

  windscreen shattered as they bounced off the stone columns, and the body

  of the Land Rover flipped over as it went down the embankment and began

  to roll.

  Royan was catapulted through the open door and flung clear. The slope of

  the bank broke her fall, but it knocked the wind out of her. She bounced

  and rolled down the incline and then dropped into the icy waters of the

  stream below the bridge.

  Just before her head went under, she found herself looking up at the sky

  and the bridge above her. She caught one last glimpse of the truck

  before it roared away. It was towing two huge cargo trailers. The tall

  bodywork of the trailers stood higher than the guard rail of the bridge.

  Both of the trailers were covered by a heav green nylon tarpaulin roped

  down to the lugs on the body. She had only a subliminal glimpse of a

  large red trademark and company name painted on the side of the nearest

  trailer, but before she could register the name she was plunged below

  the surface of the stream and the cold and the force of her fall drove

  the air from her lungs.

  She fought her way to the surface of the river, and found she had been

  washed some way downstream.

  Impeded by her sodden clothing, she floundered to the bank and used the

  branch of a tree to haul herself out.

  She knelt in the mud, coughing up the water she had swallowed and trying

  to assess what injury she had suffered in the collision. Then her own

  plight was forgotten as she heard the terrible sounds of her mother's

  agony from the overturned wreck of the Land Rover.

  In frantic haste she clawed herself to her feet and stumbled through the

  wet and frosted grass to where the Land Rover lay on its back at the

  foot of t
he embankment.

  The bodywork was crumpled and torn, and the bright silver aluminium

  metal shone through where the dark green paint had been stripped away.

  The engine had stalled, and the front wheels were still spinning

  aimlessly as she reached it.

  "Mummy! Where are you?" she cried, and the terrible sounds never

  checked. She used the metal body of the vehicle to steady herself as she

  dragged herself towards the sound, dreading what she might find.

  Georgina sat on the wet earth with her back against the side of the car.

  Her legs were thrust out straight ahead of her. The left one was twisted

  so that the toe of the booted foot was pointed down into the mud at an

  unnatural angle. The leg was obviously broken at the knee or very close

  to it.

  This was not the cause of Georgina's distress. She held Magic in her

  lap, and was bowed over him in an attitude of abandoned grief; the sound

  of it bubbled up unchecked from deep inside her. The spaniel's chest had

  been crushed between metal and earth. His tongue lolled from the corner

  of his mouth in his last smile, but the blood dripped steadily from the

  pink tip and Georgina was using her scarf to wipe it away.

  Royan sank down beside her mother and placed one arm around her

  shoulders. She had never before seen her mother weep. She hugged her

  hard and tried by main strength to quell the sound of her sorrow, but it

  went on and on. , She never knew how long they sat together like that.

  But at last the sight of her mother's maimed leg, and an awakening fear

  that the driver of the truck might return to finish the job, roused her.

  She crawled up the bank and tottered into the centre of the road to stop

  the next car that arrived on the scene.

  Not until Royan was two hours late for their meeting did Nicholas become

  sufficiently worried to phone the police in York. Fortunately he had

  noticed the licence plate of the Land Rover.

  It was an easy one for him to remember. The registration number was his

  mother's initials combined with an unlucky 13.

  There was a delay while the woman constable checked her computer, and

  then she came back. "I am sorry to have to tell you, sir, that Land

  Rover was involved in an accident this morning."

  "What happened to the driver? Nicholas demanded brusquely.

  "The driver and one passenger have been taken to the York Minster

  Hospital."

  "Are they all right?"