by Wilbur Smith
better. It was this last waterfall-' he broke off and they listened to
it thundering away in the darkness.
"How far have we come?" Nicholas asked. "And'how much further to go?"
"It's almost impossible to tell, but I guess we are halfway to the
border. Should reach there some time tomorrow afternoon."
They were silent for a while, and then Mek asked, "What is the date
today? I have lost count of the days."
"So have Nicholas tilted his wrist-watch so that he could read the
luminous dial in the last of the light. "Good God! It's the thirtieth
already," he said.
"Your pick-up aircraft is due at Roseires airstrip the day after
tomorrow."
"The first of April,'Nicholas agreed. "Will we make it?"
"You answer that question for me." Mek grinned in the night without
humour. "What, chances of your fat friend being late?"
jannie is a pro. He is never late," said Nicholas. Again a silence fell,
and then Nicholas asked, "When we reach Roseires, what do you want me to
do with your share of the booty?" Nicholas kicked one of the ammunition
crates.
"Do you want to take it with you?"
"After we see you off on the plane with your fat friend, we are going to
be doing some hot-footed running from Nogo. I don't want to be carrying
any extra luggage. You take my share with you. Sell it for me - I need
the money to keep fighting here."
"You trust me?"
"You are my friend."
"Friends are the easiest to cheat - they never expect it," Nicholas told
him, and Mek punched his shoulder and chuckled.
"Get some sleep. We will have to do some hard paddling tomorrow." Mek
stood up in the Avon as she pitched and rolled gently to the push of the
current. "Sleep well, old friend," he said, and climbed across to the
boat alongside, where Tessay waited for him.
Nicholas braced his back against the soft pneumatic gunwale of the Avon
and took Royan in his arms. She sat between his knees and leaned back
against his chest, shivering in her sodden clothes.
After a while her shivering abated, and she murmured, "You make a very
good hot'water bottle."
"That's one reason for keeping me around on a permanent basis," he said,
and stroked her wet hair. She did not answer him, but snuggled closer,
and a short while after, wards her breathing slowed as she fell into an
exhausted sleep.
Although he was cold and stiff and his shoulders ached and his palms
were blistered from wrestling with the steering oar, he could not find
sleep as readily as she had.
Now that the prospect of reaching the airstrip at Roseires loomed
closer, he was troubled by problems other than those of simply
navigating the river and battling his way Wot through Nogo's men. Those
were enemies he could recognize and fight; but there was something more
than that which he would soon have to face.
Royan stirred in his arrns and muttered something he could not catch.
She was dreaming and talking in her sleep.
He held her gently and she settled down. again. He had started to drift
off himself when she spoke again, this time quite clearly. "I am sorry,
Nicky. Don't hate me for it.
I couldn't let you-' her words slurred and he could make no sense of the
rest of it.
He was fully awake now, her words aggravating his doubts and misgivings.
During the rest of that night he slept only intermittently, and his rest
was troubled by dreams as distressing as hers must have been to hern the
pre-dawn darkness he shook Royan gently.
She moaned and came awake slowly and reluctantly.
They bolted down a few mouthfuls of the cold rations that remained from
the previous night. Then, as dawn lit the gorge just enough for them to
see the surface of the river and the obstacles ahead, they pushed off
from their moorings and the yellow boats strung out down the current.
The battle against the river began all over again.
The cloud cover was still low and unbroken, and the rain squalls swept
over them at intervals. They kept going all that morning, and slowly the
mood of the river began to ameliorate. The current was not so swift and
treacherous, and the banks not so high and rugged.
It was midafternoon and the clouds were still closed in solidly overhead
as they entered a stretch where the river threaded itself through a
series of bluffs and headlands, and they came upon another set of
rapids. Perhaps Nicholas was more expert in his technique by now, for
they swept through them without mishap, and it seemed to him that each
stretch of white water was progressively less severe than the last.
"I think we are through the worst of it now," he told Royan as she sat
on the deck below him. "The gradient and the fall of the river are
definitely more gentle now. I think it is flattening out as we approach
the plains of the Sudan."
"How much further to Roseires?" she asked.
"I don't know, but the border can't be too far ahead now."
Nicholas and Mek were keeping the flotilla closed up in line astern, so
that orders could be shouted across the gaps between them and all the
boats kept under their command.
Nicholas steered for the deeper water on the outside of the next wide
bend, and as he came through it he saw that the stretch of river ahead
seemed open and altogether free of rapids or shoals. He relaxed and
smiled at Royan.
"How about lunch at the Dorchester grill next Sunday?
Best roast beef trolley in London."
He thought he saw a shadow pass across her eyes before she smiled
brightly and replied, "Sounds good to me., "And afterwards we can go
back home and curl up in front of the telly and watch Match of the Day,
or play our 01" little match."
"You are rude," she laughed, "but it does sound tempting."
He was about to stoop over her, and kiss her for the pleasure of
watching her blush again, when he saw the dance of tiny white fountains
spurting up ftorn the surface of the river ahead of their bows, coming
swiftly towards, them. Then, moments later, he heard the crackle of
automatic fire, the distinctive sound of a Soviet RPD.
He threw himself down over the top of Royan, covering her with his own
body, and heard Mek bellowing from the boat behind them.
'411111%awOv .AL.
"Return fire! Keep their heads down."
His men threw down their paddles and seized their weapons. They blazed
away towards the inner curve of the bank from where the attack was
coming.
The attackers were completely concealed amongst the rocks and scrub, and
there was no definite target to shoot at. However, in an ambush like
this it was essential to lay down as heavy a covering fire as possible,
to keep the attackers' heads down and to upset their aim.
A bullet tore through the nylon skin of the Avon close to Royan's head
and went on to lam into one of the metal offered ammunition crates. The
sides of their craft 0 protection at all from the heavy fusillade that
lashed them.
One of their crew was hit in the hea
d. The bullet cut the top off his
skull like the shell of a soft'boiled egg, and he was flung over the
side. Royan screamed more with horro.
than with fear, while Nicholas snatched up the assault rifle that the
dead man had dropped and emptied the magazine towards the bank, firing
short taps of three and raking the scrub that concealed their attackers.
The Avon still raced downstream on the current, spiralling aimlessly as
she lost direction without the steering oar. It took them less than' a
minute to be carried past the ambush and around the next bend of the
river.
Nicholas dropped the empty rifle and shouted across at Mek, "Are you all
right?"
"One man hit here," Mek yelled back. "Not too bad." Each of the boats
reported their casualties: a total of one dead and three wounded. None
of the wounded was in a serious condition, and although three of the
boats had been holed, the hulls were made up of watertight compartments
and were all still floating high.
Mek steered his Avon alongside Nicholas's and called across. "I was
beginning to think we had given Nogo the slip."
"We got off lightly that time," Nicholas called back.
"We probably took them by surprise. They weren't expecting us to be on
the water."
"Well, no more surprises for him now. You can bet they are on the radio
already. Nogo knows exactly where we are and where we are headed." He
looked up at the cloud. "We can only hope the cloud stays thick and
low."
"How much further to the Sudanese border?"
"Not sure, but it can't be more than another couple of hours."
"Is the crossing guarded?" Nicholas asked.
"No. Nothing there. Just empty bush on both sides."
"Let's hope it stays empty," Nicholas muttered.
Within thirty minutes of the fire-fight, they heard the helicopter
again. It was flying above the clouds, and as they listened it passed
overhead, but out of sight, and headed on downstream. Twenty minutes
later they heard it again, coming back in the opposite direction, and
shortly after that it flew downstream again, still above the cloud.
"What the hell is Nogo playing at?" Mek called across to Nicholas.
"Sounds as though he is patrolling the river, but he can't get under the
cloud."
"My guess is that he is ferrying men downstream to cut us off. Now he
knows we are using boats, he also knows that we can only head in one
direction. Nogo isn't one to worry about international borders. He may
even have realized by now that we are heading for Roseires. It's the
nearest unmanned airstrip along the river. He could be waiting for us
when we try to land., Mek steered his Avon closer and passed a line
across, tying the two boats together so that they could talk in normal
tones.
"I don't like it, Nicholas. We are going to walk right into them again.
What do you suggest?"
Nicholas pondered for a long minute. "Don't you recognize this part of
the river? Don't you know precisely where we are yet?"
Mek shook his head. "I always keep well away from the river when we
cross the border, but I will recognize the old sugar'mill at Roseires
when we get there. It's about three miles upstream from the airstrip."
"DesertedT Nicholas asked.
"Yes. Abandoned ever since the war began twenty years ago."
"With this cloud cover, it will be dark in an hour," Nicholas said. "The
river is slower now and not so dangerous. We can take a chance and keep
on going after dark.
Perhaps Nogo won't expect that. We might be able to give him the slip in
the dark."
"Is that the best you can do?" Mek chuckled. "As a plan it sounds to me
a bit like closing your eyes and hoping for the best."
"Well, if somebody could tell me where the hell we are, and what time
Jannie will arrive tomorrow, I might be able to come up with something a
bit more specific." Nicholas grinned back at him. "Until that happens, I
am flying by the seat of my pants."
All of them were tense with strung-out nerves as they paddled on into
the premature dusk beneath the thick blanket of cloud and rain. Even in
the gathering darkness the crew kept their weapons cocked and locked,
trained on either bank of the river, ready to return fire instantly.
"We must have crossed the border an hour ago," Mek called to Nicholas.
"The old sugar mill can't be far ahead."
"In the dark, how will you find it?"
"There is the remains of an old stone jetty on the bank, from which the
riverboats taking the sugar down to Khartoum used to load."
Night came down upon them abruptly, and Nicholas felt a sense of relief
as the river banks receded into the murk and the darkness hid them from
hostile eyes ashore.
As soon as it was fully dark they lashed the boats -together to prevent
them becoming separated and then let the river carry them on silently,
keeping so close in to the right hand bank that they ran aground more
than once, and some of the men had to slip over the side and push them
out into deeper water.
The stone piers of the jetty at Roseires sprang out at them
unexpectedly, and Nicholas's leading Avon slammed into them before he
could steer clear. However, the crew were ready and they jumped over the
side into chest-deep water and dragged the boat to the bank. Immediately
Mek leaped ashore and, with twenty of his men, spread out into the
overgrown canefields along the bank to secure the area and prevent a
surprise attack by Nogo's men.
There was confusion and more noise than Nicholas felt was safe as the
rest of the flotilla beached, and they began to bring the wounded ashore
and unload the cargo of ammunition cases. Nicholas piggybacked Royan to
the bank and then waded back to fetch Tessay. She was much stronger by
now. The enforced rest during the voyage down river had given her a
chance to recover, and she stood up unaided in the Avon and climbed on
to Nicholas's shoulders to be brought ashore.
Once on dry ground he let her slide down on to her own feet and asked
her quietly, "How are you feeling?"
"I will be all right now, thank you, Nicholas," He supported her for a
moment while she recovered her balance and said quickly, "I did not have
a chance to ask earlier. What about Royan's message that she asked you
to telephone from Debra Maryam? Did you get it through for her?
"Yes, of course," Tessay replied guilelessly. "I told Royan that I had
given her message to Moussad at the Egyptian Embassy. Didn't she tell
you?"
Nicholas winced as though he had taken a low punch, but he smiled and
kept his tone casual. "It must have slipped her mind. Not important,
anyway. But thanks nevertheless, Tessay."
PM-Om At that moment Mek came striding out of the darkness and spoke in
a harsh whisper. "This sounds like a camel market. Nogo will hear us
from five miles away." Quickly 3. he took command and started to
organize the shore party Once the last of the ammunition crates were
unloaded, they dragged the boats into the canefields and unscrewed the
<
br /> valves that deflated the pontoons. Then they piled cane trash over them.
Still working in the dark they distributed the cargo of ammunition
crates amongst Mck's men. Sapper took a case under each arm. Nicholas
slung the radio over one shoulder and his emergency pack over the other,
and balanced on his head the case that contained Pharaoh's golden
death-mask and the Taita ushabti.
Mek sent his scouts forward to sweep the route out to the airstrip and
make certain that they did not run into an ambush. Then he took the
point and the rest of them strung out in Indian file along the rough,
overgrown track behind him. Before they had covered a mile the clouds
suddenly opened overhead, and the crescent moon and the stars showed
through and gave them enough light to make out the chimneystack of the
ruined mill against the night sky.
But even with this moonlight their progress was slow and broken ses, by
long pau for the stretcher-bearers carrying the wounded had difficulty
keeping up. By the time they reached the airstrip it was after three in
the morning and the moon had set. They stacked the ammunition cases in
the same grove of acacia trees at the end of the runway where they had
cached the pallets of dam-building equipment and the yellow tractor on
the inward journey.
Although they were all exhausted by this time, Mek set out his pickets
around the camp. The two women tended the wounded, working by the light
of a small screened fire as they used up the last of Mek's medical
supplies.
Sapper used the one electric torch whose batteries still held a charge,
and he gave Nicholas a discreet screened light while he set up the radio
and strung the aerial.
Nicholas's relief was intense when he opened the fibreglass case and
found that, despite its dunking in the Nile, the rubber gasket that
seated the lid had kept the radio dry.
When he switched on the power, the pilot light lit up. He tuned in to
the shortwave frequency and picked up the early morning commercial
transmission of Radio Nairobi.
Yvonne Chaka Chaka was singing; he liked her voice and her style. But he
quickly switched off the set so as to conserve the battery, and settled
back against the hole of the acacia tree to try and get a little rest
before daylight broke. However, sleep eluded him - his sense of betrayal
and anger were too strong.
