by Wilbur Smith
falls. The current pushed him against the side of the basin, close in
beneath the chute of the falls. He reached out and found a handhold on a
clump of mossy fern growing out of a crack in the wall.
Here, at last, he had a chance to rest and consider his position. It did
not take him long, however, to realize that his only way out of the
chasm was to follow the course of the river and to take his chances with
whatever lay downstream. He could expect rapids, if not another set of
falls like this one that thundered away close beside him.
If only there were some way up the wall! He looked up, but his spirits
quailed as he considered the overhang that formed a cathedral roof high
above him.
While he still stared upwards, something caught his eye. Something too
regular and regimented to be natural.
There was a double row of dark marks running vertically up the wall of
rock, beginning at the surface of the water and climbing up the wall to
the rim almost two hundred feet overhead. He relinquished his hold on
the clump of fern and dog-paddled slowly down to where these marks
reached the water.
As he reached them he realized that they were niches, cut about four
inches square into the wall. The two rows were twice the spread of his
arms apart, and the niche in one row lined up in the horizontal plane
exactly with its neighbour in the second row.
Thrusting his hand into the nearest opening, he found that it was deep
enough to accommodate his arm to the elbow. This opening, being below
the flood level of the waters, was smoothed and worn, but when he looked
to those higher up the wall, above the water mark, he saw that they had
retained their shape much more clearly. The edges were sharp and square.
"My word, how old are they to have been worn like that?" he marvelled.
"And how the hell did anybody get down here to cut them?"
He hung on to the niche nearest him and studied the pattern in the cliff
face. "Why would anybody go to all that amount of trouble?" He could
think of no reason nor purpose. "Who did this work? What would they want
down here?" It was an intriguing mystery.
Then suddenly something else caught his eye. It was a circular
indentation in the rock, precisely between the two rows of niches and
above the high-water mark. From so far below it looked to be perfectly
round - another shape that was not natural.
He paddled further around, trying to reach a position from which he
would have a clearer view of it. It seemed to be some sort of rock
engraving, a plaque that reminded him strongly of those marks in the
black boulders that flank the Nile below the first cataract at Aswan,
placed there in antiquity to measure the flood levels of the river
waters. But the light was too poor and the angle too acute for him to be
certain that it was man-made, let alone to recognize or read any script
or lettering that might have been incorporated in the design.
Hoping to devise some way of climbing closer, he tried to use the stone
niches as aids. With a great deal of effort, usin them as foot- and
hand-holds, he managed to lift himself out of the water. But the
distances between holds were too great and he fell back with a splash,
swallowing more water.
"Take it easy, my lad - you still have to swim out of here. No profit in
exhausting yourself. You will just have to come back another day to get
a closer look at whatever it is up there."
Only then did he realize how close he was to total exhaustion. This
water coming down from the Choke mountains was still cold with the
memories of the high snows. He was shivering until his teeth chattered.
"Not far from hypothermia. Have to get out of here now, while you still
have the strength."
Reluctantly he pushed himself away from the wall of rock and paddled
towards the narrow opening through which the Dandera river resumed the
headlong rush to join her mother Nile. He felt the current pick him up
and bear him forward, and he stopped swimming and let it take him.
"The Devil's roller-coaster!" he told himself. "Down and down she goes,
and where she stops nobody knows."
The first set of rapids battered him. They seemed endless, but at last
he was spewed out into the run of slower water below them. He floated on
his back, taking full advantage of this respite, and looked upwards.
There was very little light showing above him, for the rock almost met
overhead. The air was dank and dark and stank of bats. However, there
was little time to examine his surroundings, for once again the river
began to roar ahead of him. He braced himself rilentally for the assault
of turbulent waters, and went cascading down the next steep slide.
After a while he lost track of how far he had been carried, and how many
cataracts he had survived. It was a constant battle against the cold and
the pain of sodden lungs and strained muscle and overtaxed sinew. The
river mauled him.
Suddenly the light changed. After the gloom at the bottom of the high
cliffs it was as though a searchlight had been shone directly into his
eyes, and he felt the force and ferocity of the river abating. He
squinted up into bright sunlight, and then looked back and saw that he
had passed out below the archway of pink rock into that familiar part of
the river which he had explored with Royan. Coming up ahead of him was
the rope suspension bridge, and he had just sufficient strength
remaining to paddle feebly towards the small beach of white sand below
it.
One of the hairy tattered ropes dangled to the surface of the water, and
he managed to catch hold of it as he drifted past and swing himself in
towards the beach. He tried to crawl fully ashore, but he collapsed with
his face in the sand and vomited out the water he had swallowed. It felt
so good just to be able to lie without effort and rest.
His lower body still hung into the river, but he had neither the
strength nor the inclination to drag himself fully ashore.
"I am alive," he marvelled, and fell into a state halfway between sleep
and unconsciousness.
never knew how long he had been lying like that, but when he felt a
hand shaking his shoulder, and a voice calling softly to him, he was
annoyed that his rest had been disturbed.
"Effendi, wake up! They seek you. The beautiful Woizero seeks you."
With a huge effort Nicholas roused himself and sat up slowly. Tamre
knelt over him, grinning and waggling his head.
(Please, effendi, come with me. The Woizero is searching the river bank
on the far side. She is weeping and calling your name,' Tamre told him.
He was the only person Nicholas had ever met who contrived to look
worried and to grin at the same time. Nicholas looked beyond him and saw
that it must be late afternoon, for the sun sat fat and red on the lip
of the escarpment.
While still sitting in the sand Nicholas checked his body, making an
inventory of his injuries. He ached in every muscle, and his legs and
arms were scraped and bruised, but he could detect no brok
en bones. And
although there was a tender lump on'the side of his he ad where he had
glanced off a rock, his mind was clear.
"Help me upP he ordered Tamre. The boy put his shoulder under Nicholas's
armpit, where the. rope had burnt him, and hoisted him to his feet. The
two of them struggled up to the bank and on to the path, and then.
hobbled slowly across the swinging bridge.
He had hardly reached the other bank when there was a joyous shout from
close at hand.
"Nicky! Oh, dear God! You are safe." Royan ran down the path and threw
her arms around him. "I have been frantic. I thought that-' she broke
off, and held him at arms length to look at him. "Are you all right? I
was expecting to find your broken bodym---'
"You know me," he grinned at her and tried not to i limp. "Ten'feet tall
and-bullet-proof You don't get rid of Me that easily. I only did it just
to get a hug from you."
She released him hurriedly. "Don't read anything into that. I am kind to
all beaten puppies, and other dumb animals." But her smile belied the
words. "Nevertheless, it's good to have you back in one piece, Nicky."
"Where is Boris?"he asked.
"He and the trackers are searching the banks lower down the river. I
think he is looking forward to finding your corpse."
"What has he done with my dik-dik?"
ainly nothing too much the matter with
"There is cert you if you can worry about that. The skinners have taken
it down to the camp."
"Damn it to hell! I must supervise the skinning and tion of the trophy
myself. They will ruin id' He put prepara his arm around Tamre's
shoulder. "Come on, my lad! Let's see if I can break into a trot."
las knew that in this heat the carcass of icho the little antelope would
decompose swiftly, and the hair would slough from the hide if it were
not treated immediately. It was imperative to skin it out immediately.
Already it had been left too long, and the preparation of a hide for a
full body mount was a skilled and painstaking procedure.
it was already dark as they limped into the camp.
Nicholas shouted for the skinners in Arabic.
"Ya, Kif! Ya, SalinP and when they came running from living huts he
asked anxiously, "Have you begun?" their
"Not yet, effendi. We were having our dinner first."
"For once gluttony is a virtue. Do not touch the creature until I come.
While you are waiting for me, fetch one of the gas lights!" He limped to
his own hut as fast as his aches would allow. There he stripped and
anointed all his visible scrapes and abrasions with Mercurochrome, flung
on fresh dry clothes, rummaged in his bag until he found the canvas roll
which contained his knives, and hurried down to the skinning hut.
By the brilliant white glare of the butane gas lantern he had only just
completed the initial skin incisions down the inside of the dik-dik's
legs and belly when Boris pushed open the door of the hut.
"Did you have a good swim, English?"
"Bracing, thank you." Nicholas smiled. "I don't expect you want to eat
your words about my striped dik-dik, do you?" he asked mildly. "No such
bloody animal, I think you said., "It is like a rat. A true hunter would
not bother himself with such rubbish," Boris replied haughtily. "Now
that you have your rat, perhaps we can go back to Addis, English?"
"I paid you for three weeks. It is my safari. We go when I say
so,'Nicholas told him. Boris grunted and backed out of the hut.
Nicholas worked swiftly. His knives were of a special design to
facilitate the fine work, and he stropped them at regular intervals on a
ceramic sharpening rod until he could shave the hairs from his forearm
with just the lightest touch.
The legs had to be skinned out with the tiny hooves still attached.
Before he had completed this part of the work, another figure stooped
into the hut. He was dressed in a priest's shamma and headcloth, and
until he spoke Nicholas did not recognize Mek Nimmur.
"I hear that you have been looking for trouble again, Nicholas. I came
to make sure that you were still alive.
There was a rumour at the monastery that you had drowned yourself,
though I knew it was not possible. You will not die so easily."
"I hope you are right, Mek," Nicholas laughed at him.
Mek squatted opposite him. "Give me one of your knives and I will finish
the hooves. It will go quicker if I help you."
Without comment Nicholas passed him one of the knives. He knew that Mek
could skin out the hooves, for years before he had taught him the art.
With two of them working on the pelt, it would go that much faster. The
sooner the skin was off, the less chance there would be of
deterioration.
He turned his attention to the head. This was the most delicate part of
the process. The skin had to be peeled off like a glove, and the eyelids
and lips and nostrils must be worked from the inside. The ears were
perhaps the most difficult to lift away from the gristle in one piece.
They worked in companionable silence for a while, which Mek broke at
last.
"How well do you know your Russian, Boris Brusilov?" he asked.
"I met him for the first time when I stepped off the plane. He was
recommended by a friend."
"Not a very good friend." Mek looked up at him and his expression was
grim. "I came to warn you about him, Nicholas."
"I a listening," said Nicholas quietly.
"In "85 I was captured by Mengistu's thugs. They kept me in the Karl
Marx prison camp near Addis. Brusilov was one of the interrogators
there. He was KGB in those days.
His favourite trick was to stick the pressure hose from a compressor up
the anus of the man or woman he was questioning and turn on the tap.
They blew up like a balloon, until the gut burst." He stopped speaking
while he moved around to work on the other hoof of the antelope.
"I escaped before he got around to questioning me. He retired when
Mengistu fled, and went hunting. I don't know how he persuaded Tessay to
marry him, ut knowing what I do of the man, I expect she did not have
much choice in the matter."
"Of course, I had my suspicions about him," Nicholas admitted.
They were quiet after that until Mek whispered, "I came to tell you that
I may have to kill him."
Neither of them spoke again until Mek had finished working on all four
hooves. Then he stood up. "These days, life is uncertain, Nicholas. If I
have to leave here in a hurry, and I do not have a chance to say goodbye
to you, then there is somebody in Addis who will pass a message to me if
you ever need me. His name is Colonel Maryam Kidane in the Ministry of
Defence. He is a friend. My code name is the Swallow. He will know who
you are talking about."
They embraced briefly. "Go with GodV said Mek, and left the hut quietly.
The night swallowed his robed figure and Nicholas stood for a long time
at the door, until at last he turned back to finish the work.
It was late by the time he had rubbed every inch of the skin with a
mixture of rock salt and Kabra
dip to cure it and protect it from the
ravages of the bacon beetle and other insects and bacteria. At last he
laid it out on the floor of the hut with the wet side uppermost and
packed more rock salt on the raw areas.
The walls of the hut were reinforced with mesh netting to keep out
hyenas. One of these foul creatures could gobble down the pelt in a few
seconds. He made certain the door was wired shut before he carried the
lantern up to the dining hut. The others had all eaten and gone to bed
hours earlier, but Tessay had left his dinner in the charge of the
Ethiopian chef. He had not realized how hungry he was until he smelt it.
The next morning Nicholas was so stiff that he hobbled down to the
skinning hut like an old man. First he checked the pelt and poured
fresh salt over it, then he ordered Kif and Satin to bury the skull of
the dik-dik in an ant heap to allow the insects to remove the surplus
flesh and scour the brain pan. He preferred this method to boiling the
skull.
Satisfied that the trophy was in good condition, he went on down to the
dining hut, where Boris greeted him jovially.
"And so, English. We leave for Addis now, da? "thing more to do here."
"We will stay to photograph the ceremony of Timkat at the
monastery,'Nicholas told him. "And after that I may want to hunt a
Menelik's bushbuck. Who knows? I've told you before. We go when I say
so."
Boris looked disgruntled. "You are crazy, English. Why do you want to
stay in this heat to watch these people and their mumbo'jumbo?"
"Today I will go fishing, and tomorrow we will watch Timkat."
"You do not have a fishing rod," Boris protested, but pened the small
canvas roll no larger than a Nicholas woman's handbag and showed him
the four-piece Hardy Smuggler rod nestling in it.
He looked across the table at Royan, "Are you coming along to ghillie
for me?" he asked.
They went upstream to the suspension bridge where Nicholas set up the
rodand tied a fly on to his leader.
"Royal Coachm " He held it up for her appraisal.
an.
"Fish love them anywhere in the world, from Patagonia to Alaska. We
shall soon find out if they are as popular here in Ethiopia, as well."
She watched from the top of the bank as he shot out line, rolling it
upon itself in flight, sailing the weightless fly out to midstream, and
