Wilbur Smith - B4 The Leopard Hunts In Darkness

by B4 The Leopard Hunts In Darkness(Lit)

  Added to the thirst, Peter Fungabera's threat of delivering him to the hyena pack festered in his imagination and became more potent for every day that it was delayed.

  Water and hyena they were beginning to drive him beyond the borders of sanity. He knew that he could not hold out much longer, and he wondered confusedly why he had held out this long. He had to keep reminding himself that Lobengula's tomb was all that was keeping him alive. While he had the secret, they could not kill him. He did not entertain for even a moment the hope that Peter Fungabera would keep his promise of sending him to safety once he led them to the tomb.

  He had to stay alive, it was his duty. As long as he lived, there was still hope, however faint, of delivery. He knew that with his death his people would sink deeper into the tyrant's coils. He was their hope of salvation. It was his duty to them to live, even though death would now be a blessing and a release, he could not die. He must live on.

  He waited in the icy darkness of pre-dawn, his body too stiff and weak to rise. This day they would have to carry him to the wall, or to whatever they had planned for him.

  He hated that thought. He hated to show such weakness in front of them.

  He heard the cam A guards, the orders i sound of blows and the cries of a prisoner in the adjoining cell being dragged to the execution wall.

  Now soon they would come for him. He reached out for the water bowl and his disappointment hit him in a cold gust as he remembered that the previous evening he had not been able to control himself. The bowl was empty. He crouched over it and licked the enamel likea dog, in case a drop remained of the precious fluid. It was dry.

  stir. The march of the less violence, the The bolts shot back and the door was flung open. The day had begun. Tungata tried to rise. He lurched up onto his knees. A guard entered and placed a large dark object on the threshold and then quietly withdrew. The door was bolted again and Tungata was left alone.

  This had never happened before. Tungata was stupefied and uncomprehending. He crouched in the darkness and waited for something more to happen, but nothing did. He heard the other prisoners being led away, and then silence beyond the door of his cell.

  The light began to strengthen and cautiously he examined the object that had been left by the guard. It was a plastic bucket, and in the dawn light the contents shimmered.

  Water. A full gallon of water. He crawled to it and examined it, not yet beginning to hope. Once before, they had tricked him. They had doctored his water bowl and he had gulped down a mouthful before he realized that it was heavily laced with salt and bitter alum. The thirst that lowed had driven him delirious and shaking as though fol in malarial crisis.

  Gingerly he dipped his forefinger into the liquid in the bucket and tasted a drop. It was sweet, clean water. He made a little whining sound in his throat, and scooped the empty bowl full of the precious fluid. He tilted back his head and poured the water down his throat. He drank with a terrible desperation, expecting that at any moment the oar would crash open and a guard would kick the bucket over.

  He drank until his empty belly bulged, and pangs of colic stabbed through it. Then he rested for a few minutes, feeling the fluid flowing into his desiccated tissues, feeling them recharge with strength, and then he drank again, and rested and drank again. After three hours he urinated copiously in the toilet bucket for the first time in as long as he could remember.

  When they finally came for him at noon, he could stand UP unaided and curse them with fluency and artistry.

  r They led him towards the execution wall, and he felt almost cheerful. With his belly sloshing with water, he knew he could resist them for ever. The execution stake had no terror for him any longer. He had stood there too long and too often. He welcomed it as a part of the routine which he understood. He had reached the point where he feared only the unknown.

  Halfway across the parade ground he realized that something was different. They had built a new structure facing the wall. A neatly thatched sun-shelter. Under the shelter two chairs were set and a table had been laid for lunch.

  Seated at the table was the dreadfully familiar figure of Peter Fungabera. Tungata had not seen him for days, and his new-found courage faltered, weakness came back over him. He felt a rubbery give to his knees and he stumbled.

  What had they planned for today? If only he knew, he could meet it. The uncertainty was the one truly unbearable torture.

  Peter Fungabera was lunching and he did not even look up as Tungata was led' past the thatched shelter. Peter ate with his fingers in the African manner, taking the stiff white maize cake and moulding it into bite-sized balls, pressing a depression into it with his thumb and then filling it with a sauce of stewed greens and salted kapenta fish from Lake Kariba. The smell of the food flooded Tungata's mouth with I liva, but he trudged on towards so execution stake.

  the wall and the There was only one other victim today, he noticed, narrowing his eyes against the glare. He was already strapped to one of the stakes. Then, with a small shock of surprise, Tungata realized that it was a woman.

  She was naked a young woman. Her skin had a soft velvety sheen in the sunlight, like polished amber. Her body was graciously formed, her breasts symmetrical and firm, their aureolas were the colour of ripe mulberries, the nipples upturned and out-thrust. Her legs were long and Willowy, the bare feet small and neat. Bound as she was, she could not cover herself Tungata sensed her shame at her naked sex, nestled dark and fluffy in the juncture of her thighs likea tiny animal with separate life. He averted his eyes, looked up at her face and at last he despaired.

  It was all over. The guards released his arms, and he tottered towards the young woman at the stake. Though her eyes were huge and dark with terror and shame, her first words were for him. She whi ered softly in Sindebele, SP "My lord, what have they done to you?"

  "Sarah." He wanted to reach over and touch her dear and lovely face, but he would not do so under the lewd gaze of his guards.

  "How did they find you?" He felt very old and frail. It was all over.

  "I did as you commanded," she told him in soft apology.

  "I went into the hills, but then a message reached me one of my children from the school was dying dysentery and no doctor. I could not ignore the call."

  "Of course, it was a lie," he guessed flatly.

  "It was a lie," she admitted. "The Shana soldiers were waiting for me. Forgive me, lord."

  "It does not matter any longer," he answered.

  "Not for me, lord," she pleaded. "Do not do anything for me. I am a daughter of Mashobane. I can bear anything these Shana animals can do to me." He shook his head sadly, and at last reached out and touched her lips with the tips of his fingers. His hand was trembling like that of a drunkard. She kissed his fingers.

  He dropped his hand and, turning, trudged wearily back to the thatched shelter. The soldiers made no effort to prevent him.

  Peter Fungabera looked up as he approached and motioned to the empty canvas chair. Tungata sat down and his body slumped.

  "First," Tungata said, "the woman must be untied and clothed." Peter gave the order. They covered her and led her away to one of the hutments.

  My lord-" she strained back against their grip, her face turned piteously to him.

  "She must not be ill-treated in any way."

  "She has not been," Peter said. "She will not be, unless you make it necessary." He pushed a bowl of maize cake towards Tungata. He ignored it.

  "She must be taken out of the country and delivered to a representative of the international Red Cross in Francistown."

  "There is a light aircraft waiting at Tuti airfield. Eat, Comrade, we must have you strong and well."

  "When she is safe, she will speak to me radio or telephone and give me a code-word that I will arrange with her before she leaves."

  "Agreed." He poured hot sweet tea for Tungata.

  "We will be left alone together to agree on the code."

  "You may speak to her, of cou
rse," Peter nodded. "But in the middle of this parade ground. None of my men will be closer than a hundred yards to you, but there will be a machine-gun trained upon you at all times. I will allow you precisely five minutes with the woman." have failed you," Sarah said, and Tungata had forgotten how beautiful she was. His whole being ached with longing for her.

  "No," he told her, "it was inevitable. There is no blame to you. It was for duty, not for yourself that you came out of hiding My lord, what can I do now?" Listen," he said, and spoke quietly and quickly. "Some of my trusted people have escaped from the scourge of Fungabera's Third Brigade you must find them. I believe they are in Botswana." He gave her the names and she repeated them faithfully. "Tell them-2 She memorized all that he told her, and repeated it to him perfectly.

  From the corner of his eye Tungata saw the guards at the edge of the parade ground start towards where they stood alone in the centre. Their five minutes together was up.

  "When you are safe, they will allow us to speak on the radio. To let me know that all is well, you will repeat to me, "Your beautiful bird has flown high and swiftly".

  Repeat it."

  "Oh my lord, "she choked.

  "Repeat id" She obeyed, and then flung herself into his arms. She I j clung to him, and he to her.

  "Will I ever see you again?"

  "No,"he told her. "You must forget me."

  "Never!" she cried. "Not if I live to be an old woman never, my lord." The guards dragged them apart. A Land-Rover drove out onto the parade ground. They hustled Sarah into it.

  The last he saw of her was her face in the rear window, looking back at him her beautiful beloved face.

  n the third day, they came to fetch Tungata from his cell and take him up to Peter Fungabera's command post on the central kopie.

  "The woman is ready to speak to you. You will converse only in English. Your conversation will be recorded." Peter indicated the transistor tape deck beside the radio apparatus. "If you do attempt to slip in any Sindebele message, it will be translated later."

  id

  "The code we have arranged is in Sindebele, Tungata told him. "She will have to repeat it."

  "Very well. That is acceptable, but nothing else." He looked Tungata over critically. "I am delighted to see you looking so well again, Comrade, a little good food and rest have worked wonders." Tungata wore faded suntans, but they were freshly laundered and pressed. He was still gaunt and wasted, but his skin had lost the dusty grey look and his eyes were clear and bright. The swelling of the adder bite on his cheek had abated, and the scab covering it looked dry and healthy.

  Peter Fungabera nodded to the guard captain and he passed the radio microphone to Tungata and pressed the record" button on the tape deck.

  "This is Tungata Zebiwe."

  "My lord, this is Sarah." Her voice was scratchy and distorted by static, but he would have known it anywhere.

  The ache of longing filled his chest.

  "Are you safe?"

  "I am in Francistowti. The Red Cross are caring for me."

  "Do you have a message?" She replied in Sindebele. "Your beautiful bird has flown high and swiftly." Then she added, "I have met others here.

  Do not despair." That is good I want' you to-" Peter Fungabera reached across and took the microphone from his hand. "Excuse me, Comrade, but I am paying for the call." He held the microphone to his lips and depressed the transmit button. "Transmission ends," he said, and broke the connection.

  He tossed the microphone casually to the guard captain.

  "Have the tape translated by one of the Matabele trusties and bring me a copy immediately." Then he turned back to Tungata.

  Your little holiday is over, Comrade, now you and I have work to do. Shall we go?" aw long would he be able to draw out the search for Lobengula's grave, Tungata wondered. Fo, every hour he could gain would have value -another hour of life, another hour of hope.

  "It is almost twenty years since my grandfather took me to visit the site. My memory is unclean"

  "Your memory is as brilliant as that sun up there," Peter told him. "You are renowned for your ability to remember places and faces and names, Comrade, you forget that I have heard you speak in the Assembly, without notes.

  Besides which, you will have a helicopter to ferry you directly to the site."

  "That will not work. The first time I went was on foot. I must go back the same way. I would not recognize the landmarks from the air." So they went back along the dirt roads that Tungata and old Gideon had bussed over so many years before, and the Tungata genuinely could not find the starting place fall of rocks in the old river course and the kopje shaped like an elephant's head. They spent three days searching, with Peter Fungabera becoming more and more short tempered and disbelieving, before they stopped at the tiny village and trading-store that was the last reference point that Tungata could remember.

  "Haul The old road. Yes, the bridge was washed away many years ago. It was never used again. Now the new road goes so and so-" They found the overgrown track at last and four hours later reached the dry river-bed. The old bridge had cot lapsed into a heap of shattered concrete already overgrown with lianas, but the rock wall upstream was exactly as Tungata had remembered it and he experienced a pang of nostalgia. Suddenly old Gideon seemed very close to him, so much so that he glanced around and made a small sign with his right hand to appease the ancestral spirits and whispered, "Forgive me, Babo, that I am going to betray the oath." Strangely the presence that he sensed was benign and fondly indulgent, as Old Gideon had always been. "The lies this way." They left the Land-Rover at the broken path bridge and continued on foot.

  Tungata. led with two armed troopers at his back. He set an easy pace, that chafed Peter Fungabera who followed behind the guards. As they went, Tungata could allow his imagination to wander freely. He seemed to be part of the exodus of the Matabele people of almost a hundred years before, an embodiment of Gandang, his great-great-grandfather, faithful and loyal to the end. He felt again the despair of a defeated people and the terror of the hard riding white pursuit that might appear at any instant from the forest behind them, with their chattering three, legged machine-guns. He seemed to hear the lament of the women and the small children, the lowing of herds as they faltered and fell in this hard and bitter country.

  When the last of the draught oxen were dead, Gandang had ordered the warriors of his famous Inyati regiment into the traces of the kingy's remaining wagon. Tungata imagined the king, obese and diseased and doomed, sitting up on the rocking wagon box staring into the forbidding north, a man caught up in the millstones of history and destiny and crushed between them.

  "And now the final betrayal," Tungata thought, bitterly.

  "I am leading these Shana animals to disturb his rest once again." Three times, deliberately, he took the wrong path, drawing it out to the very limit of Peter Fungabera's patience. The third time, Peter Fungabera. ordered him stripped naked and his wrists and ankles bound together, then he had stood over him with a cured hippo-hide whip, the vicious kiboko that the Arab slave-traders had in traduced to Africa, and he thrashed Tungata likea dog until his blood dripped into the sandy grey earth.

  It was the shame and humiliation of the beating rather than the pain that had made Tungata turn back and pick up his landmarks again. When he reached the hill at last, II;, it appeared ahead of them with all the suddenness that Tungata recalled so vividly from his first visit.

  They had been following a deep gorge of black rock, polished by the roaring torrential spates of the millennia.

  The depths were studded with stagnant green pools in which giant whiskered catfish stirred the scummy surface as they rose to feed, and lovely swallow-tailed butterflies floated in the heated air above, gems of scarlet and iridescent blue.

  They came around a bend in the gorge, clambering over boulders the size and the colour of elephants, and abruptly the surrounding cliffs opened and the forest fell back.

  Before them, likea vast
monument to dwarf the pyramids of the pharaohs, the hill of Lobengula rose into the sky.

  The cliffs were sheer and daubed with lichens of twenty different shades of yellow and ochre and malachite. There was a breeding colony of vultures in the upper ledges, the parent birds sailing gracefully out over the heated void, tipping their wings in the rising thermals as they banked and spiralled.

  "There it is," Tungata murmured. "Thabas Nkosi, the hill of the king." The natural pathway to the summit followed a fault in the rock face where limestone overlaid the country rock.

  At places it was steep and daunting and the troopers, weighted with packs and weapons, glanced nervously over the drop and hugged the inner wall of rock as they edged upwards, but Peter Fungabera and Tungata climbed easily and surefooted over even the worse places, leaving the escort far below.