by Tony Park
It took them the best part of an hour to dig out the mud from around the bogged wheels and to lay the fresh-cut green logs in front of them. As Mike had predicted, Nigel’s hands were red-raw with blisters from the saw. Mel’s bare arms were chafed from carrying the logs and her hands pockmarked with splinters. Linda and George sat side by side in the mud at the side of the track, oblivious to discomfort and rain. They compared blisters and strained muscles as they drank steaming tea. Terry was spattered with mud from his spell on the shovel. Kylie was bandaging Sam’s left hand where he had cut it on a jagged piece of the truck’s front guard.
Timber cracked and splintered as Mike started the engine and the wet, muddy tyres struggled to find purchase on the branches. Nelson strained at the mud’s grip and, ever so slowly, started to inch up the crude wooden ramp. The logs had not been as thick as Mike would have liked, but he had not chastised Nigel, who had worked as hard as anyone else. Nelson crawled along, up and out of the mud, but Mike could feel the smaller branches starting to give. He increased the speed a little, but he felt the wheels starting to spin again.
‘No!’ Linda cried in horror as Nelson’s rear started to slide. The land had dipped slightly again where the track crossed a shallower watercourse, yet to be flooded. Here the ground was even softer than before and Mike tasted bitter bile in his mouth as he felt the Bedford’s big wheels spinning in place. The small logs could not hold the weight and cracked as Nelson sank again.
Mel started to cry, and Linda walked over and put her arms around her. Sam turned away angrily and picked up a shovel. He started to dig the churned mud from under a rear wheel.
Nigel spat on his hands and rubbed them together.
‘Who’s for more tea?’ asked Terry from the back of the truck.
Mike laughed and took up another shovel. ‘Let’s get dirty again.’
Mike checked his watch and had to hold it close to his face to see the time. Condensation beaded the inside of the glass, thanks to the humidity and constant rain. It was after four. He had thought they might have completed the track by early evening, but there was no chance now. They would have to camp somewhere in the bush.
Bush camping, he knew, was not the safest activity in Africa, given the widespread crime problem in most of the continent, but in remote areas like the Petauke Road it was sometimes the only option. They hadn’t passed a village for more than twenty kilometres and Mike doubted they would come across another for at least the same distance in the direction they were heading. Besides, everyone, including him, would be in need of a rest as soon as they were clear of the mud.
‘Crocodile!’ Kylie screamed from her vantage point on the roof. Those of them near the truck turned to stare in the direction she was pointing. ‘There, look, coming out of the river. It’s enormous!’
The crocodile was walking slowly up the muddy bank, very close to where they were stuck. His beady eyes blinked at the sound of Kylie’s voice and he stopped and lifted his broad snout a little to sniff the air. He looked like what he was, one of nature’s perfect killers – green-brown camouflage skin, wicked yellow teeth and a tail that would knock a grown man down with one flick.
The crocodile turned away from the road and the truck, and sauntered off into the high adrenaline grass. ‘They leave the rivers when there’s a flood on the way, same as the hippos,’ Mike explained to Terry and George, who were standing nearby, leaning on their shovels.
Mike thrust the blade of his shovel into the mud, but stopped at the sound of vehicle engines and turned back to the direction they had come from. Two late-model Land Rovers, one white and one red, were crossing the swollen river, which now threatened to fill the first churned hollow they had just freed Nelson from. The trucks had South African plates and each sported a heavy-duty aluminium roof-rack with a folded roof-top tent, green plastic cargo boxes and bright-blue gas bottles. Seeing the mess in the road and the bogged Bedford, the driver of the lead vehicle swerved boldly into the adrenaline grass as he cleared the river, forging a new road alongside the rutted track, a tactic Mike wished he had tried in the first place.
‘Hey, man, looks like you’re stuck!’ a middle-aged man with blond hair and beard, a rugby forward’s bulk and a thick Afrikaans accent said with a grin.
Mike resisted the urge to hit him with his shovel and smiled instead.
‘Need a hand?’ the man offered.
Mike doubted the Land Rover could pull the Bedford free because the truck was too heavy, and he explained as much. ‘Where are you headed?’ Mike asked as an afterthought.
‘Flatdogs. You know it?’
Mike nodded. A flatdog is African slang for a crocodile and Mike knew the camp of the same name was a popular spot for travellers. The camp was located on the banks of the South Luangwa River, at the entrance to the national park.
‘I’d appreciate it if you’d tell them at the camp that we’re on our way. We should be there by tomorrow evening,’ Mike said. At least that way if something else went wrong and they didn’t show up, the authorities would know where to look for them.
‘No problem, boet,’ the South African said, using the word for ‘brother’ in his own language. ‘I’ll mark your position here, just in case you can’t get out, and give it to the camp staff.’ He reached across to a GPS unit mounted on the dashboard of his Land Rover, between him and an equally bulky redheaded woman, and punched some buttons with a meaty finger. ‘Done,’ he added with finality.
‘Thanks, mate,’ Mike said. ‘Tell them we’ll make camp on the first high ground we come to on this side of the river.’
‘Good luck, man,’ the South African said.
Tired and sore, the rest of the team managed only limp waves as the two Land Rovers trundled off on their way. Mike cast another look at the river, which was still swelling. They would have to be quick.
29
Sarah Thatcher slammed her palm down on the steering wheel of the rented Mitsubishi Pajero hard enough to hurt her hand. ‘Shit!’ she said as she took another glance at the map of Zambia spread out on the empty passenger seat. She looked up and swerved hard to miss a tree branch that had fallen across the slick muddy track. The rear of the white four-wheel drive slewed drunkenly. She got the vehicle back on track, and risked taking one hand off the steering wheel to fish for the cigarettes and matches in her daypack.
For the twentieth time in as many minutes she wondered if she had taken the wrong road. Standing in the rain at a service station in Petauke she had studied the map and remembered one of the last things Mike had said to her before he kissed her goodbye. It was something about watching out and taking the back roads. There was only one back road between Lusaka and South Luangwa National Park, and that was the dirt road heading north-east from Petauke. On the map it looked fine, almost like a short cut, but no road Sarah had ever driven in her life had prepared her for what she had experienced in the previous few hours.
After trying Mike’s mobile phone from her room at the Holiday Inn over and over again with no reply, she’d finally called reception and asked for the numbers and addresses of nearby car rental companies. Before leaving the hotel she also phoned Nicholas, at The Times.
‘Where are you? Heathrow or Gatwick?’ he had asked. ‘The line’s shocking.’
‘Africa,’ she said.
He had been furious when he learned the truth. Sarah had managed to placate him by explaining the reason for the delay and hinting at the possibility of a second run-in with the poachers.
‘They could be after the tour guide and everyone in the truck, Nicholas. These people have a reputation for killing witnesses.’ Even as she spoke the words she regretted them, and felt sick with fear and shame that she might somehow capitalise on the danger faced by people she had come to care for. ‘The story isn’t over, Nicholas.’
There was a long pause at the other end of the crackling international line. ‘All right,’ he said at last, and she could picture him scratching his weak, hairless chin, the way he al
ways did when he was pissed off, ‘I’ll cover for you. But if you don’t come up with something better than the feature we already had you set up to write, you can kiss a job here goodbye – no matter what there was between us in the past.’
Sarah bit her lip to stifle the reply that almost sprang to her lips. There had been nothing between her and Nicholas, but he obviously remembered their relationship differently. She hated to think she had sold her story on the basis of a failed affair, and Nicholas’s remark only made her more determined to deliver an even bigger scoop than she already had.
She had telephoned the police in Lusaka, but they had insisted that unless she wanted to report a crime there was nothing they could do.
‘But these men shot at my friend in a national park!’ she said tersely to the policeman on the phone.
‘Which national park?’
‘Matusadona. They were trying to kill a rhino.’
‘Ah, but madam, Matusadona is in Zimbabwe, not Zambia,’ the policeman had said.
Sarah had slammed the phone down in its cradle. She did not have a number for Mike’s police contact, Theron, and, although she considered calling the South African Police, she had no idea what part of the force the detective worked in.
The rain blotted out the afternoon sun and the thick, dripping bush on either side of the road made the muddy track even gloomier. She found the headlight switch and flicked the lights on, but all that did was illuminate the curtain of pouring rain that shrouded the vehicle. She had breakfasted at the hotel and bought a chicken pie for lunch at a service station in Petauke town, and the only food and drink she had with her in the car was three under-ripe bananas and half a litre of tepid drinking water. She realised she was woefully under-equipped to spend a night in the African bush.
Black diesel smoke belched from the back of the four-wheel drive as she geared down and floored the accelerator to climb a steep hill. Suddenly the wheels hit solid ground, a pleasant surprise after kilometres of treacherous mud. Through the rain she could make out twin ribbons of concrete passing beneath the tyres. ‘That’s more like it,’ she said to herself, although the smile on her face quickly returned to a hard-set grimace as she coasted over the hill and saw the concrete tracks disappear into the mud.
Looking down into the valley she saw a fast-flowing muddy river bisecting a flat plain of long grass. On the far side of the grass a flash of colour caught her eye, then the Pajero passed under the low branch of a leafy tree and she lost sight of the bright object. Cursing, she stopped the four-wheel drive in a long wet skid when the view into the valley cleared again. She rubbed the misty windscreen with a tissue plucked from the courtesy box in the console between the seats, and stared hard.
There, partially obscured by long grass, was the unmistakable garish yellow of Nelson. ‘Oh God, hold on!’ she cried. She released the handbrake and gunned the engine and the Pajero lurched forward like an ungainly child on new ice skates. Sarah wrestled with the steering wheel. Her vehicle was almost broadside to the road and she was scared it was about to roll, as the angle of her descent became steeper. She took her foot off the accelerator and let go of the wheel momentarily, knowing she could not straighten the vehicle by trying to overcorrect. The Pajero slowed and nosed into some bushes at the side of the track. She reversed and turned the nose back down the road, and resisted the urge to accelerate.
She could see people, three or four at the back of the yellow truck. They were holding their arms high now, tools in hand, as if in celebration. The Bedford started to move forward, gradually disappearing into the long grass. ‘No, no, no!’ she yelled as the Pajero careened down the hill. She felt the hill start to bottom out, and the truck slowed as the cloying mud became softer and softer. She switched the transfer lever into low-range four-wheel drive to increase its traction and plunged on towards the swollen brown river. Down low she could see, in the distance, that the truck had stopped just short of where the trees started again, and the last of the people were climbing aboard. She stabbed the vehicle’s horn, but doubted it would be heard over the noise of the fast-flowing river and the rain.
Water cascaded over the bonnet of the Pajero as Sarah stood on the accelerator and entered the river. She gasped with alarm as she felt a cool wetness on her foot. Water was seeping into the cab from around the door seals. Still she leaned on the horn, but the truck was almost completely out of sight and showed no sign of stopping.
Sarah was nearly halfway across the river when the engine started to cough and chug. ‘Come on! Come on!’ she willed the vehicle. The engine shuddered sickeningly then died. The Pajero came to a halt in the middle of the raging river.
‘Mike!’ Sarah screamed uselessly as the truck finally vanished into the thick trees ahead. Something bounced off the side of the Pajero with a loud clang and Sarah willed herself to calm down and think. She tried the engine again and again, but there was only the painful screech of the starter motor.
The Pajero rocked with the force of the raging river and Sarah looked down to see water over her ankles. She curled her legs under her and knelt on the driver’s seat, still sounding the horn. She could swim, though not strongly, and she debated with herself whether she would be safer staying with the vehicle or trying to reach the far shore. After weighing the options she decided to stay inside the vehicle, and that as long as there was no danger of the Pajero being washed away this was the safest spot for her to await rescue.
There was a creaking, grating noise beneath her and the four-wheel drive started to slide sideways.
Spirits were high in the truck as Mike drove up the incline away from the river and its boggy bank. He was only mildly annoyed when Nigel called out for him to stop.
‘Sorry, Mike, but I think I left my shovel back in the mud when we got on board,’ he said, poking his head into the driver’s cab.
They were all soaked and filthy and those with tools had simply thrown them into the passenger cab in their eagerness to get moving again, away from the cloying mud. The cab floor was slick and stinking with the ooze and its cargo of decaying plant and animal matter.
‘OK, Nigel,’ he said, ‘out you get, and be quick about it. I can’t drive back, in case we get stuck again.’
Nigel nodded and leapt down from the truck. Mike shook a wilting cigarette from the crumpled pack in his damp shirt pocket and after several attempts managed to light it. The smoke flowed grudgingly into his lungs as he watched Nigel in the wing mirror, running down the track. He closed his eyes for a moment and savoured the feeling of sore hands, tired muscles and nicotine. He felt like he was twenty again, back in the army.
When he opened his eyes a couple of seconds later he could just make out Nigel. He had stopped in the track, facing away from the truck. He was waving his hands over his head, but at what Mike couldn’t make out.
‘Jesus Christ, what now?’ he muttered. Mike watched the reflection for a couple more seconds and then saw Nigel turn and start running back towards the truck, empty-handed. Mike stubbed out the cigarette in the truck’s ashtray, opened the door and jumped down.
‘Mike!’ Nigel screamed as he ran.
Mike took a few paces towards him.
‘It’s Sarah!’
Mike was running now, and as they met, the words sprayed from Nigel in excited gasps.
‘Stuck in the middle of the river . . . her car’s starting to slide . . . we’ve got to get her!’
‘Get the tow ropes out of the locker in the back. And bring everybody else. Hurry!’ Mike ordered.
Mike ran as fast as he could in the sucking mud, losing a sandal on the way and nearly falling twice. He was gasping for air as he reached the water’s edge. There was a white Pajero in the middle of the river, turned at an angle three-quarters to the direction of the roadway. It was stalled and starting to slide. Sarah sat on the sill of the open passenger side window. She was soaking wet. Her hands were on the roof of the vehicle, constantly slipping as she tried to find purchase on the polished metal. �
�Hang on!’ Mike called.
He looked over his shoulder and saw everyone from the truck running down the hill. Nigel and Terry, who had started out on the trip as enemies, were side by side, joining the metal snap hooks of Nelson’s two yellow nylon tow ropes together to make one long line as they ran.
‘Mike, it’s moving!’ Sarah yelled, as the force of the churning water pushed the Pajero’s nose even further around. The stricken vehicle was almost facing downriver.
‘Give me that,’ Mike said to Terry and took the free end of the tow rope. He wrapped it over one shoulder and under the other arm, and fixed the snap hook onto the rope. He shrugged off his other sandal and ran as far upstream from the submerged crossing as the rope would allow. He charged at the river and dived in.
The water was colder than he expected and the current snatched viciously at his body as he struck out overarm towards the Pajero. Mike struggled to keep his head out of the filthy water, but the speed of the river and a fierce undertow dragged him down after every few strokes. He watched, enraged, as he was pulled downstream past the Pajero, still fifteen metres short of Sarah. He rolled onto his back to conserve his strength and waved one arm.
‘Pull me in!’ Mike hollered, and felt the rope tighten painfully around him as Nigel, Terry, George and, eventually, all the other members of the crew started pulling. He waded out of the river as his feet touched the muddy bottom.
‘No good,’ Mike said, bending, hands on knees as he spat out foul water. ‘Let’s go further upstream. Run down with me as I swim across, OK?’ There were nods all around and they jogged along the river bank.
‘Hurry!’ Sarah cried.
Again Mike dived into the torrent and struck out hard. The crew – his lifeline – ran down the bank, playing out the rope. This time they had the angle of interception right and he could see the Pajero in front of him. He was going to make it.
