‘This is the place,’ he said when they came up, ‘so let’s get it over without any more delay.’
‘All right,’ Michael agreed, pulling down the top of his trousers and untying the canvas belt that held the stones. ‘Where are the girls?’
Philbeach was grinning as he leaned negligently up against the side of his car. ‘I had a hunch you wouldn’t trust me sufficiently to pass the stuff over at White River. That was only a try-on because I didn’t want to give away this hideout if I could avoid it.’
‘Oh, never mind that!’ said Sandy impatiently, but Philbeach seemed in no hurry now and went on quietly:
‘Fine country round here, isn’t it? I knew it well in the old days and why I stuck in London all those years I just can’t think.’
Michael eyed him angrily. ‘I could give a darn good guess but we’re not interested in your record. We want to get this business done.’
‘Mighty anxious to see young Pat again, aren’t you, Galahad? And you’ve got taste—you have. I like that kid myself; I like Sarie, too; she’s got something of the same look about her in a queer sort of way, but there isn’t a woman living who’s worth what you’ve got in that belt.’
‘Come on,’ Michael urged. ‘Let’s see them and you can have it.’
Philbeach jerked his head backwards in the direction of the hut. ‘They’re tied up in there. You can go in and see if you like.’
‘Thank God!’ The thought of Patricia dominated every other consideration in Michael’s mind, and, still clutching the precious belt, he dashed towards the shack.
Sandy and Ernest followed, but the latter pulled up with a jerk as Cornelius, suddenly suspicious of a trap, cried: ‘Wait!—let him bring them out.’ Then, rounding on Philbeach: ‘Where are Ginger and Darkie Rickhartz?’
‘Pleased ter meet you, Mister Van Niekerk,’ Darkie answered for himself, stepping out from a tangle of nearby bushes with his pistol at the ready. ‘Stick’em up or you’re for it—you bloody judge’s pup.’
Michael had already thrust open the rough door of rotting timbers and stood outlined against the lingering light, peering into the pitchy darkness of the hut. Almost as Darkie spoke, another voice came from the black interior. ‘I got you covered an’ if you raise a finger I’ll drill you.’ Then Ginger emerged, forcing him back towards the others with a levelled pistol.
They were trapped and helpless. For one wild moment Sandy thought of making a desperate attack on Philbeach, who was still lounging against the side of his car, but he knew that these men would shoot him down without the slightest cumpunction. In this wild region even his body might not be discovered for many days.
He cursed his folly for having trusted Philbeach even an inch, and for having been taken in by the man’s blarney about neither party carrying arms. If they had not all been half-stupified by their long day and the terrible night of anxiety which had preceded it, they would have taken Darkie and Ginger into their calculations. The saliva running hot in his mouth with the desire to kill, yet retaining just enough sanity to prevent himself committing virtual suicide by hitting out, Sandy raised his arms slowly to the level of his shoulders. Then he watched Philbeach snatch the belt containing the stones out of Michael’s hand.
‘Damn it,’ cried Michael, wrought to the pitch of utter desperation. ‘Take the blasted things—I promised them to you, didn’t I? But for God’s sake keep your part of the bargain and lead us to the girls.’
‘Not on your life,’ Philbeach snarled with sudden savagery. Then, his mood changing in an instant, he laughed and added: ‘But you needn’t worry about their faces. They’re much too pretty to spoil. I’ve had a crush on that little Patricia of yours for a long time now, and Ginger is so matey with Sarie that you just can’t keep the two of them apart. Those little birds are in a special cage I’ve got and they’re going to sing for us to-night.’
28
Night in the Fever Country
‘Keep them covered, Darkie, while we see to the boat.’ Philbeach gave a last contemptuous glance at the four friends and, with Ginger, beside him, walked the thirty yards to the river’s edge.
‘How much will you take to change sides?’ Sandy whispered, with the sudden inspiration of suborning Darkie immediately Philbeach was out of earshot.
‘Nothing you could pay me!’ Darkie retorted swiftly, and next moment a hail from the shadows where the bank sloped to the broad waters of the Komati told him that the others were ready to make the crossing.
‘Move a foot and you’ll get it—understand?’ he said menacingly, then he began to back away.
When he had covered a third of the distance he flourished his gun in a final warning and, turning his back on them, broke into a trot.
With the same thought in their minds, Cornelius and Sandy instantly dashed for their car. Another moment and they had pulled their automatics from the basket and were blazing away at the running figure which was now within ten yards of the bank.
Darkie swung on his heel and his pistol cracked once—then with a sudden lurch, he fell.
‘Fling yourselves flat,’ Cornelius yelled to Michael and Ernest, who were still standing by the ruined shack.
The warning came none too soon; Philbeach and Ginger had opened fire from the river. A bullet thudded into the woodwork of the ramshackle building and two more pinged into the body of the car behind which Sandy and Cornelius were crouching.
Michael sprang up a moment later and ran to them, secured his gun, and joined in the action.
In the growing darkness it was difficult for any of the combatants to see each other. Darkie’s huddled form showed vaguely on the bank where he had fallen. The canoe lay below it, hidden from sight. Vague patches of whiteness showed, where the swift river foamed and tumbled over the jagged rocks which broke its surface and beyond, the dark trees which fringed the Portuguese side.
‘Hold your fire,’ Cornelius ordered. ‘They’ve either got to come ashore if they mean to take Darkie with them or push out into the river—we’ll get them then.’
Philbeach and Ginger also ceased fire. They had no intension of risking their skins to save Darkie whether he was dead or only wounded. Both were busy pulling the canoe, hand over hand, farther down stream under shelter of the bank.
‘I don’t like it,’ Sandy exclaimed after the tense silence had lasted for a few moments. ‘They may have come ashore and be crawling round behind us.’
Cornelius gave a swift glance into the dark bush over his shoulder. ‘Best run for the hut,’ he muttered, ‘then we’ll have something to protect our backs.’
‘Where’s Ernest?’ asked Michael suddenly.
‘God knows! He funked it, I suppose—come on,’ and the three of them left their cover in a quick dash for the shack.
Once they were inside it and had wedged the door behind them, Sandy struck a match. There was Ernest crouching in a corner, his face white and scared, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.
‘It’s all right, old man,’ said Sandy kindly. ‘Now we’re in here together we’ve got the whip hand and they won’t chance making an attack; we could pot them from the windows. Keep your head down, though, in case they try to snipe us.’
‘I should think they’re half-way across the river by now,’ Cornelius said quietly. ‘After all, they’ve got the diamonds and that’s what they came for.’
‘But what the devil shall we do now?’ Michael’s voice rang with all the bitter anguish that he was feeling. Patricia’s face, desperately imploring him to help her, was before his mental eyes. Sandy suppressed a groan as he thought of Sarie somewhere in that trackless forest on the far side of the river, about to suffer unthinkable horrors at the hands of the semihalfcaste, Ginger.
‘If only we had our passports and proper visas we might at least cross into Portuguese East by Komati Poort, but without them we can’t even do …’
‘Got you,’ snapped a voice, and they swung round to see a pale blob of white face above a pair of broad s
houlders against the faint light in the empty square of window.
‘Put your hands up and no nonsense,’ the voice went on. ‘We are the police,’ and as the man ceased speaking they saw that a pistol barrel rested on the sill—holding them covered.
There was a sound of quick footsteps and the door was thrust roughly open. Three other officers entered and one flashed a torch over them. Suddenly it came to rest on Sandy’s face.
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ exclaimed the man who held it. ‘If it isn’t McDiamid. This is a bit of luck.’
‘Hello, Moorries! so you’ve turned up again,’ said Sandy bitterly, ‘but if you’re hunting for diamonds you’re still on the wrong track.’
‘Diamonds, and other things,’ the Captain laughed grimly. ‘Come on outside, so that we can have a look at you.’
They followed him from the shack, where the police relieved them of their weapons and searched them. Then, with a disappointed grunt Moorries pointed to Philbeach’s big closed car. ‘That’s what brought me here. It was stolen in Johannesburg last night and as I was up in this area, headquarters told me to keep a look-out for it. When I was making inquiries for you I heard that it had passed through Nelspruit an hour and a half ago then I managed to trace it down here. Where’s the bird who was driving it?’
‘Over the river by now,’ Cornelius told him. ‘He’s been gone about ten minutes.’
The Captain grunted. ‘Ach,’ that’s a pity. I’m not allowed to follow him into Portuguese East.’
‘I wish to God you could,’ exclaimed Michael. ‘He’s got those diamonds that…’
‘You seem to think we’ve been handling,’ Sandy cut in loudly. ‘He’s had them all the time. He actually showed them to us to-night and the charge he brought against me was only a put-up job to throw dust in your eyes.’
‘It’s that big guy, Philbeach, that you’re talking of, then?’ Moorries took him up quickly. ‘Why the hell didn’t you let me know before?’
‘I wasn’t certain of it, and the truth is I’ve got an old score against the man that I wanted to settle personally without bringing in the police.’
‘If you want the diamonds, for God’s sake why not go after him?’ Michael urged. ‘He’s got them on him.’
‘I can’t.’ The Captain shook his head. ‘I’ve already told you that I’m not allowed to cross the border.’
‘Listen, man,’ Cornelius broke in, ‘there’s more to it than the diamonds. McDiamid has just told you that we’ve a long standing quarrel with this man and he’s had the best of it altogether. He kidnapped my sister and another girl in that car last night and he’s got them somewhere over there in the bush. We’re sick with fear as to what may be happening to them. You’ve simply got to help us.’
‘Those would be the two women reported lost in Johannesburg last night,’ Moories nodded. ‘I only heard about that just before I left this morning. That’s pretty tough on you, I must say, but even so my hands are tied. I can’t work the far side of the frontier.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Michael pleaded. ‘We’re half-crazy with anxiety. That swine told us before he pushed off in his boat that he’d got them in a nice little cage and he was going to make them both sing to-night. Can’t you understand what that means?’
‘What’s that you say—cage?’ The Captain’s eyes brightened suddenly. Then he went on half-reminscently: ‘Could it be the same man, I wonder—but no—it’s ten years since we heard anything of him. Yet now I come to think of it the description fits this chap from what little I remember.’
‘Are you thinking of the Gorilla?’ one of the other policemen broke in.
‘Yes. Remember that hide-out that he had up in a tree, somewhere down in the fever country, that all of us knew about but none of us could ever find? He used to have women down there, too, in his “cage”, as he called it.’
‘There’s a warrant still out for him over the Brendon killing,’ the other man went on.
‘Yes,’ murmured Moorries. ‘I’d give a lot to get my hands on him?
Together Sandy and Michael began to plead again with the Captain that he should take some action but he still shook his head.
‘I’m not allowed out of the Union, I keep on telling you; and even if I were none of us have got the least idea where his hang-out is. We might search those swamps and forests for a year without coming on it.’
‘There’s just a chance that I might be able to produce some body who could lead you there,’ said Cornelius suddenly. Then he ran off at a quick limp to the place where Darkie lay and, seizing him by the shoulder, turned him over on his back.
‘Oh, hell!’ groaned the wounded man. ‘For Christ’s sake be careful of my leg.’
‘Thank God you’re alive, anyhow,’ Cornelius muttered in a swift whisper, ‘but you’re not going to be for long unless you listen to me. The police are up there at the shack now, and you’re going to lead us to Philbeach’s hang-out on the other side of the river—understand? If you don’t, I swear to you by my mother’s grave that I will kill you, even if I swing for it afterwards.’
Darkie dragged himself painfully into a sitting position. ‘So that’s the ticket, eh? Anyhow, there’s no need to imperil your immortal soul on my account. The Gorilla left me here, didn’t he?—the skunk! and if you’d cleared off, the lions that come down here at nights out of the Reserve would have got me, like as not. I’ll learn him to go back on a pal.’
The others had hastened after Cornelius and as they approached he looked up swiftly. ‘Here’s you man, Darkie Rickhartz—Philbeach is the Gorilla—and he’s just promised to lead us to his cage. Surely you’ll have a cut at getting him now.’
Moorries considered for a moment, then, with sudden determination in his voice, he said: ‘All right. It’s worth taking a chance of trouble with the powers that be to bring the Gorilla in. But where did this chap come from? And how did he get shot?’
‘We’ll tell you all about that in a moment,’ said Sandy hastily, ‘but let’s get him to the car. Every moment counts now and I’m frantic with anxiety about the girls.’
Darkie was wounded in the thigh and bleeding badly, but they staunched the blood and bandaged him up as well as they could while he cursed them for their trouble. Then they carried him groaning to Sandy’s car, where he was propped up between Ernest and one of the policemen in the back.
Moorries agreed to the three friends receiving back their weapons and since Ernest was now the only unarmed member of the party Darkie’s pistol was handed over to him. The Captain climbed in beside Sandy and the others piled into the police car, which had been left a hundred yards down the track.
During the short drive back to Komati Poort Sandy satisfied Moorries’ inquiries for the moment, then the car halted on the road below the Emigration Officer’s hut.
Moorries alighted and spoke for a few moments with a tall, thin young man in khaki shirt and riding breeches. The others could not hear what he was saying, but would have been interested to know that he had invented a little story on his way from the shack, to the effect that some dangerous characters were endeavouring to escape from the Union over the river a few miles lower down and that he wished to post his men on the Portuguese side to head them back. He had made up his mind that he was justified in being a little unorthodox now that he had a real chance to get the Gorilla.
The officer asked who the other people were in the two cars, and the Lieutenant declared them to be plain clothes police. He was a kind-hearted fellow and, having witnessed Sandy and Michael’s cruel distress, had not the heart to make them wait for him in Komati Poort.
The frontier officer agreed that as far as he was concerned they might go through, but that the Captain must take his chance with the Portuguese authorities.
Agreeing with a quick nod, Moorries jumped back into his seat and the cars ran down a slope, across the river, and up the farther bank. A mile farther on they pulled up again, still on South African soil, before the Customs Office
r’s house. He passed them promptly and a native policeman jumped on the step of the leading car to pilot them through the actual frontier posts.
Running down the steep hill that constitutes the short natural zone they entered the little town of Ressano Garcia. Another five hundred yards and they halted again before a two-storied building. This time they all left the cars and filed into a bare, lofty room, furnished only with a couple of tables and a collection of native weapons on the whitewashed walls.
Here a swarthy but good-looking young man, clad in a magnificent suit of brightly-coloured silk pyjamas, received them. He was extremely courteous to the police but dubious about allowing the others to proceed until Michael, to everybody’s surprise, suddenly addressed him in Portuguese and gave him a rapid outline of the true situation.
For a moment the young official hesitated between annoyance that the South African police should have attempted to fool him, and the innate chivalry of the Latin races when it is a case of beauty in distress.
Chivalry won, and pouring out a torrent of grandiloquent expressions of sympathy and goodwill towards Michael, he stamped cards for them and with a flourish sped them upon their way.
Under two minutes the cars were out of the little township set down in this sparsely inhabited portion of Africa, so different with its continental atmosphere from those on the Union side of the river. The road now lay straight and wide before them, an altogether superior highway to those frightful tracks over which they had been driving for so many hours during that long day.
The Fabulous Valley Page 25
