But they weren’t rocks.
Suddenly, one of them opened like a strange flower with rosy petals and large blunt tusks and snorted with rage before attacking the nearest canoe.
The rowers, surprised by the hippopotamus’s violent eruption, reacted too late and couldn’t keep the giant animal from trapping the canoe in its jaws, lifting it in the air, and breaking it in half.
Then shouts of alarm spread among the Mangbetu, who were stunned by that aggression as they forgot the boat and its occupants, focusing instead on getting away from the furious beasts charging them from all directions.
The Mangbetu defended themselves with their spears, trying to keep the hippos away like bizarre picadors, but though they cut the hippos’ skin again and again, the animals’ thick layer of fat shielded them from the warriors’ pathetic weapons.
The water, stained with blood, seethed with the remains of canoes and body parts.
Less than a minute later, only a handful of canoes were intact, all their occupants engaged in a death struggle against those irascible beasts as they cried in fear and pain.
Carmen realized then why Riley had ordered Mutombo to take them to that section of the river. It was the same one where the hippos had attacked them on the way there, and Verhoeven had said the boat’s paddles hitting the water made them frenzied with rage.
Then she turned to Riley, who had a cruel smile on his lips, apparently enjoying the show.
“Stop it,” she said.
Riley looked at her without understanding.
“It’s enough,” Carmen insisted.
Riley hesitated.
The desire for revenge and fascination for horror intoxicated him like warm liquor running down his throat. The pleasure of inflicting pain on men who were so different they barely qualified as human was a pleasure that was difficult to resist.
In Carmen’s eyes, Riley realized he was about to lose his humanity.
Not only that, but he might lose her too.
“Stop the engine,” he ordered, turning to Mutombo.
The Congolese didn’t move. The desire to avenge his lover still hadn’t been satisfied.
“Stop it,” he repeated.
Carmen put her hand on Mutombo’s arm. “Please,” she whispered.
He sighed hard, perhaps also realizing that he was about to cross a line he wouldn’t be able to come back from.
He nodded slightly and headed downstairs.
Seconds later, the motor stopped with a metallic sigh and the paddles went still.
There were only three canoes intact, and Riley felt a hidden satisfaction in seeing that none of them belonged to the Mangbetu chief.
Many of the men who had fallen into the water had tried to swim ashore, and though the hippos’ fury had eased for the moment, Riley noticed long shapes emerging from the water and surfacing in straight lines toward some of the survivors. He realized the killing wasn’t over. The crocodiles had come to finish the job.
“Feu!” Mutombo urged them from the lower deck. “J’ai besoin d’aide!”
Riley turned to Carmen, not understanding, as his French had never been very good.
Carmen opened her eyes with alarm and clutched his hand before pulling him downstairs.
Then Riley realized what feu meant. Fire.
Far from going out, the flames of the firebomb he’d thrown on deck had spread to the wooden boxes and raffia bags and started to lick the base of the posts supporting the upper deck above their heads.
Mutombo, bucket in hand, was about to throw its contents on the puddle of kerosene still burning by the side, which was the origin of the fire.
“No!” Riley shouted at the last minute, causing Mutombo to freeze. “If you put water on kerosene it spreads!”
Mutombo looked at him, confused, still not sure whether to listen to him.
Then Carmen translated the explanation into French and told him to throw the water on the boxes that burned intensely, their flames nearly reaching the ceiling.
Meanwhile, Riley grabbed an old mat and put it over the fuel, trying to deprive it of the oxygen it needed to burn. Carmen immediately followed suit with a half-empty sack, and after a while they both managed to suffocate the source of the fire.
When they finished, however, they realized the fire had spread along the deck, and Mutombo couldn’t keep up by throwing one bucket after another. If they didn’t manage to contain it, the boat would burn completely, and all their effort and brave struggle would have been for naught.
Without the Roi des Boers, hundreds of miles from civilization, in that state, surrounded by hippos and crocodiles that were still attracted by the smell of blood, they had no chance of survival.
Despite the adrenaline flooding his veins and the poison stinging him like a whip, Riley suddenly felt exhausted. His body had said “enough,” using the last stores of energy he had left, and he dropped the pathetic floor mat. Feeling himself waver, he knew he would soon follow. He couldn’t take anymore.
Then pressure on his left arm made him turn.
There was Carmen, taking his arm to give him strength.
Consumed by pain and exhaustion, overcome by destiny determined to ruin his life, Riley saw in her eyes a ray of hope, a light that could only be love, a reason to live.
“Don’t give up,” she said.
And Alex Riley, veteran of the Spanish Civil War’s Lincoln Brigade, reached to the depths of his soul for strength and decided it wasn’t his time.
“No, not yet,” he said to himself as he clenched his fists. “Not today.”
62
When they finally managed to put out the fire, more than an hour later, night had completely overcome the river and the few survivors taking shelter amid the smoldering remains of the old steamboat anchored in the middle of a backwater of the Ebola River.
The fire had consumed almost all the provisions and severely damaged the ship’s topside, which miraculously supported the ship’s structure after the struts that supported the weight of the second deck had been scorched.
They’d also lost most of their tools and even their backup coils of rope, so any damage repair was impossible. But any kind of repairs wouldn’t help if they didn’t seal the leaks in the boiler pipe once and for all.
Before and during the attack, Mutombo had managed to patch the most recent fissure, but only enough to spin the paddles with minimal force, about 20 percent of the boiler’s pressure. Enough to annoy the hippos and barely enough to control or drive the boat.
As soon as they got the fire out, Riley fell to his knees on the deck, his inert arms at his sides. He gave Carmen a triumphant smile, but his exhaustion from the effort and the fight against the poison left his battered body with barely enough strength to get to the upper deck and collapse into the nearest hammock.
When he opened his eyes, he saw a large Dutch flag with a green stripe on its side nailed to the ceiling just above his head.
Then he looked to his right. On a dark wood desk sat a yellowed sepia photograph of a group of four bearded men wearing broad hats and holding rifles as they looked at the camera with determination. He thought the second from the right looked vaguely familiar.
Then he realized he was lying on a cot, surrounded by four walls lit by dirty light entering obliquely from a small window shielded by a broken mosquito net. And then he recognized where he was: Verhoeven’s cabin.
He started to remember. The fire, the hippos ripping apart canoes, the native stabbed by Jack’s spear, the Mangbetu assault led by their awful chief, the flight in the canoe, the death of Klein, Hudgens’s head rolling in the mud.
Carmen.
He lifted his head to look for her, but there was no one else around.
Then, straining his ears to hear her voice, he noticed the background rumble of the boat’s motor and the steady splash of the paddles against the water.
He wanted to call her, make sure she was okay, but though his lips spoke her name, no sound came from his t
hroat. Mustering all his forces, he managed to lift his hand, but like a prostrate castaway who spies a sail on the horizon, he knew no one saw his futile movement.
Then, peering over the edge of unconsciousness, Riley dreamed. Or rather, remembered.
He remembered Sunday mornings as a child in their little house on the outskirts of Boston.
He remembered his mother’s light footsteps on the wooden floor in the first light of day, walking through the house to tidy up and light the wood stove, while she softly sang Spanish songs about distant ports and foreign sailors who came and left but never returned. Huddled under the covers, little Alex listened to those songs while his child’s imagination took him to the faraway port of Cadiz in exotic Andalusia, where his father once visited and, like the men in those old songs, fell hopelessly in love.
He remembered the smell of freshly brewed coffee, the creak of the floorboards downstairs followed by a new set of footsteps, heavier and more solemn, that went to meet the others. Alex listened carefully in silence to the whispers of his parents down in the kitchen, and when he heard the silver laughter of his mother filter through the door, he knew it was going to be a good day.
He remembered the crackling of bread in the pan, French toast with honey his mother insisted on calling torrijas, the fruity smell of pipe tobacco, his father’s gravelly voice asking if the boy was planning on getting out of bed that day.
But he also remembered, or dreamed, of the morning when there were no smiles, no smell of pipe tobacco, no torrijas. The morning when his father’s heavy sailor boots made the floorboards leading to his room creak before dawn, and, half-awake, Alex felt his father’s lips land on his head to say good-bye. And how he then left the room, closing the door behind him as the hinges creaked, leaving the house silent, and Alex knowing he wouldn’t see him for days, weeks, or even months, and that a day would come when he’d never see him again.
Those were the bad days.
And with that thought, he again slowly slipped toward the wilderness of the unconscious.
The second time he woke up, an oil lamp burning with dim yellow light drew irregular shadows in the small cabin. It was nighttime.
Riley’s mouth was as dry as if lined with esparto. He ran his tongue over his lips, blinking to focus his vision and bringing his left hand to his face to rub his eyes.
A stab of pain ran from the stump of his missing finger to the base of his spine like a lightning bolt.
“Shit,” he said, angry at himself for his clumsiness.
Carmen sat up like a spring next to him. He hadn’t even realized she was in bed with him.
“What’s going on?” she asked, alarmed, her eyes wide and her messy hair falling over her face.
Seeing Riley holding his left wrist with his right hand and clenching his teeth was enough of a clue to guess what had happened.
Then she ran her hand over his forehead and puckered her lips. “Your fever’s down and you look better,” she said, satisfied. “How do you feel?”
Riley closed his eyes for a moment as if to check.
“Shitty,” he said, looking into Carmen’s onyx eyes. “But happy to see you again.”
“I’m happy too,” she said with a smile.
Riley reached to stroke her cheek and make sure he wasn’t still dreaming, but he stopped in midair with an anguished look.
“And Jack?” he asked. “Where is he? Is he . . . ?”
Carmen’s smile vanished. “He’s alive,” she said. “But he’s not well. He’s lost a lot of blood, he has a weak pulse and a high fever. I think the wound in his ribs is infected.”
“I have to go see him,” Riley said, trying to sit up, but as soon as he lifted his head, everything started to spin and he fell right back on the pillow.
“Don’t get up,” Carmen scolded. “You need to regain your strength.”
“I have to,” he protested weakly.
Carmen put a hand on his chest to stop him. “There’s nothing else you can do for him now,” she said. “We don’t have penicillin, and though Mutombo put on an antiseptic herbal poultice . . . anyway,” she sighed tiredly, “what he needs is for us to take him to a hospital.”
She didn’t need to add “in Léopoldville.” Or to remind him that it was hundreds of miles downriver. Or that even sailing full speed, it’d take more than . . .
Then Riley realized the engine wasn’t running.
“We’re stopped,” he said in disbelief before asking the only person there with him, “Why the hell are we stopped?”
“Mutombo says it’s too dangerous to go downriver at night.”
“Mutombo says?” he replied angrily, trying to stand again. “Who the hell is he to decide something like that?”
Carmen pushed him again to keep him on his back. “He’s the captain right now,” she said with a sigh. “He’s the one who knows the boat and river best, and he’s also the only one who can stand without help.”
“But we have to get Jack to the hospital right away.”
“Yes,” she conceded, leaning back. “But if we run aground or sink, then your friend will definitely not survive. And maybe you won’t either.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Riley argued without hesitation.
Carmen sat up and Riley suddenly found himself before her magnificent, naked breasts.
“Yeah, but I’m not.” She pointed outside and added, “Neither is Mutombo. Not even Jack would agree.”
Riley shook his head, forcing himself to look at her eyes.
“I don’t care,” he argued, raising his voice angrily. “I’m the captain of—” He shut up when he saw Carmen raise an eyebrow. “Oh fuck.”
“No, we’re not on the Pingarrón,” she pointed out unnecessarily. “Mutombo’s in command, and you’re just a sick passenger. A pretty annoying one, by the way.”
Riley tutted with frustration, but he was already plotting how to take control of the Roi des Boers, though it would mean . . .
Then something hit the side of the boat.
Something large and heavy.
The two looked at each other with worry.
Carmen was about to speak, but Riley put a finger on her lips.
A second passed. Two. Three.
Footsteps.
Several people sneaking along the lower deck.
“No, no, no . . . ,” Carmen pleaded in a whisper.
A murmur of hushed voices.
Riley sat up and pain from his head ran into his neck like a hot nail, but he had to find a weapon.
“Mutombo has the rifle,” Carmen said.
“Fuck,” Riley cursed, realizing there wasn’t even a penknife in the cabin.
Then the Roi des Boers’s helmsman woke up and shouted something in Lingala. A cry of alarm.
A struggle with someone. A thud and a fallen body. Silence.
“It’s them,” Carmen said, facing the door in horror.
“Get dressed. Fast,” Riley ordered.
Carmen immediately reached for her clothes hanging from the back of the chair, but it was too late.
Steps came quickly up the stairs and stopped at the top of them.
Their hands found one another’s on the sheets and clasped by way of good-bye.
The steps came to the other side of the door, and it suddenly opened violently.
A white man with a refined look and formal bearing stood in the doorway. Dressed in a wrinkled white linen suit, he looked like someone coming home after a long night of partying.
The stranger took a long drag on the cigarette in his hand, exhaled the smoke, and nodded to himself. In his eyes was a spark of amusement.
“Pardon the interruption,” he said finally, with a marked London accent and a slight cough.
Neither Carmen nor Riley could get beyond their stunned, blinking silence.
“I imagine you’re Captain Alex Riley,” he said, and turning to Carmen, added suggestively, “and this charming lady must be Carmen Debagh.” He paused,
then asked, “Am I wrong?”
Riley was so confused, he moved his lips but couldn’t form a word. “What . . . ? How . . . ?” he stammered incoherently until he managed to ask, “But who the hell are you?”
“Commander Fleming,” he said with a nod and the hint of a heel clap, “of the Navy Intelligence Department.”
Riley was going to ask what the hell that meant and where the hell he’d come from, when a new clatter of footsteps neared the door of the cabin and Julie’s face appeared in the doorway. “Capitaine!” she shouted, overwhelmed with enthusiasm. “Carmen!”
Unceremoniously pushing the commander aside, she rushed toward them with her arms open and her eyes full of tears.
A second later César and Marovic also appeared in the door, shouting their names and storming in, huddling in that little cabin that was far too small to contain all that happiness.
63
As had been happening more often lately, when Riley opened his eyes, he felt confused about exactly where he was.
He blinked several times to shake off the feeling of unreality and let his gaze wander over the wall in front of him, relishing the black-and-white photos with hunting scenes, the diplomas, and the lithograph of a city of canals dotted with sharp steeples nailed on an immaculate blue sky.
Then he started going over the bits and pieces of what had happened over the last forty-eight hours. How he was sharing a cabin with the same commissar that had detained him in Léopoldville—and with whom he’d had a long and surprisingly friendly conversation—on the Belgian colonial police motorboat Charlotte on its way to Léopoldville to put him before a judge. How thanks to the British ONI officer who they’d managed to contact by radio, the prosecution in Léopoldville had temporarily suspended the charges in Van Dyck’s murder, as well as in the subsequent escape from the police van and hijacking of the motorboat. Without Riley’s knowing the details, it seemed like they’d all stay out of jail.
He still didn’t understand how Commander Fleming fit in, but according to Julie, without him they wouldn’t have been able to come to the rescue or appear at such an opportune time. He wondered what price the Englishman would ask, but she tutted and said they could worry about it later.
Darkness: Captain Riley II (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 2) Page 44
