Elephant Song

by Wilbur Smith

  Over there.

  Daniel braked and pulled over, on to the verge.

  They were at the top of a cliff. The edge of the road was guarded by a line of white-painted rocks. Beyond that the chasm gaped. It was a drop of two or three hundred feet to the rocky riverbed below.

  Daniel pulled on the handbrake and felt his heart bounding against his rib cage. Would the shot come now? he wondered.

  It would be a stupid thing to do if they wanted to make it look like an accident, but then the big Angoni did not seem to be labouring under a heavy burden of brains. Switch off the engine, he ordered.

  Daniel did as he was told. Put your hands on your head, Chawe ordered, and Daniel felt a small lift of relief. He had a few seconds longer. He obeyed and waited.

  He heard the click of the door latch, but the pressure of the steel muzzle against his spine never slackened. He felt the cool draught of air as Chawe swung the back door open. Do not move, he warned Daniel, and slid sideways from his seat still aiming the shotgun in through the open door. Now he was standing alongside the car. Open your door slowly. The shotgun was aimed through the side window into Daniel's face. He opened the door. Now come out. Daniel stepped down.

  Still covering him with the shotgun, holding it in one hand like a horse pistol, Chawe reached out with his left hand through the open door.

  Daniel saw that he had the steel jackhandle lying on the rear seat.

  During the journey he must have taken it from under the front seat.

  In that instant Daniel understood how Chawe planned to get rid of him.

  Chawe would prod him to the edge of the precipice with the shotgun, and then a single blow to the back of the skull with the jack-handle would tumble him two hundred feet into the rocky gorge. After that the Landcruiser, with the driver's door open and probably with a burning rag stuffed into the filter of the fuel tank, would. be pushed over the cliff on top of him.

  It would look like another tourist killed by negligent driving on a notorious stretch of mountain road. Nothing to excite police suspicion, or to tie the incident to Chetti Singh and a cargo of contraband ivory in Lilongwe a hundred miles from the scene.

  At that moment Daniel saw his opportunity.

  Chawe was reaching in through the open door, and he was just marginally off balance. Although the shotgun was still pointed at Daniel's guts, he would be slow to adjust his aim if Daniel moved quickly.

  Daniel hurled himself forward, not at the man or the gun but at the door.

  He crashed into it with his full weight, and it slammed shut with Chawe's arm trapped between steel edge and jamb.

  Chawe screamed in agony. The sound of it did not cover the crack of breaking bone, sharp as a stick of dry kindling snapped across the knee.

  His forefinger, thick as a blood sausage, slipped across the trigger, firing one of the barrels. The blast of shot missed Daniel's head by a foot, though the detonation fluttered his hair and made him wince. The recoil threw the barrel high.

  Using his momentum Daniel charged him head on, seizing the shotgun with both hands, at buttstock and hot barrel.

  Chawe's grip on the weapon was single-handed and weakened by the agony of broken bone trapped in the door. He fired the second barrel, but the shot flew harmlessly into the sky.

  Daniel slammed the side of the breech into his face, catching him across the upper lip, crushing his nose and shearing off all his upper teeth at the gum. Chawe bellowed through a mouthful of blood and broken teeth, as he tried to pull his arm from the steel trap of the door.

  Daniel had the advantage of a double-handed grip on the shotgun and used it to tear the weapon from Chawe's right hand. He lifted the shotgun high, reversed it and drove the steel butt-plate into Chawe's face, catching him in the side of the jaw with the full force of the blow.

  Chawe's jawbone shattered at the hinge and his face changed shape, sagging at one side as the bone collapsed. Stunned and uncoordinated he fell backwards, held only by his trapped arm.

  Daniel yanked the door handle and it flew open, releasing Chawe's arm when he was not expecting it.

  Chawe reeled backwards, not in control of his legs, windmilling his arms to try and retain his balance, the shattered arm flapping uselessly below the joint of the elbow. One of the white-washed boulders at the edge of the cliff caught his heels and he jerked backwards, as though plucked on a wire, and disappeared over the precipice.

  Daniel heard him scream. The sound receded swiftly as he fell and was cut off abruptly on the rocks at the bottom. The silence afterwards was profound.

  Daniel found himself leaning against the Landcruiser with the shotgun still clutched to his chest, panting from those few seconds of wild exertion. It took a moment to gather himself and then he went to the edge of the cliff and looked over.

  Chawe lay on his face on the rocks at the edge of the waterfall directly below, his limbs spread like a crucifix. There was no scuff mark at the brink of the precipice to mark his fall.

  Daniel thought swiftly. Report the attack? Tell the police about the ivory? Hell, no! A white man had better not kill a black man in Africa, even in self-defence, even in a civilised state like Malawi.

  They would crucify him.

  His mind was made up by the sound of a heavy vehicle descending the mountain road in low gear. Swiftly he slipped the shotgun on to the floorboards of the Landcruiser and pulled a light tarpaulin over it.

  Then he crossed to the edge of the cliff, unzipped the fly of his trousers and forced himself to urinate over the drop.

  The descending truck appeared around the bend of the road above him.

  It was a timber lorry piled with cut logs that were chained to the cargo bed. There were two black men in the cab, the driver and his assistant.

  Daniel made a show of shaking off the drops and zipping his fly closed.

  The black driver grinned and waved at him as the lorry rumbled past and Daniel waved back.

  As soon as it was out of sight he ran to the Landcruiser and drove on up the mountain. Within two hundred yards he found a disused logging track that branched off the main road. . He drove through the dense secondary growth that clogged the track until he was out of sight of the road. He left the Landcruiser there and went back on foot, ready to duck into cover at the sound of another vehicle.

  At the top of the cliff he checked that Chawe's body still lay on the rocks below. His instinct was to leave him there and get far away from the scene as quickly as possible. He suspected that a Malawian prison was no great improvement on any other in Africa. His arm was very painful now. He could feel the first fires of infection kindling, but he didn't want even to look at it until he had cleaned up the evidence against himself.

  He skirted the top of the cliff until he found a way down. It was a game path used by hyrax and klipspringer, steep and precarious. It took him twenty minutes to reach Chawe's body.

  The skin was cold as a reptile's when Daniel touched Chawe's throat.

  There was no need to check for a pulse. He was dead meat. Swiftly Daniel turned out his pockets. He found that a greasy well-thumbed passbook was the only piece of identification. He wanted to get rid of that.

  Apart from a filthy tattered handkerchief and some loose coins, the only other items were four SSG shotgun cartridges and the key-card for the control box of the electric door on the warehouse that Daniel had seen him operate. That might come in useful.

  Satisfied that he had made it as difficult as he could for the police to identify the corpse, if they ever found it, Daniel rolled Chawe to the river edge, his broken arm flopping and catching under him, and shoved him into the racing water.

  He watched the body splash as it struck, then swirl and roll as it was carried swiftly downstream and disappeared around the next bend.

  He hoped that it would hang up on a snag somewhere in the inaccessible depths of the gorge long enough for the crocodiles to get a decent meal and further complicate the process of identification.

 
By the time he had climbed back up the cliff and reached the Landcruiser again, his arm felt as though it were on fire. Sitting at the driver's wheel, with his medical box on the passenger seat beside him, he stripped back the torn blood-caked sleeve and pulled a face at what he found beneath it. The claw wounds were not deep but already they were weeping yellow watery fluid and the flesh around them was swollen a hot crimson.

  He packed the lacerations with thick yellow Betadine paste and bandaged it, then he filled a disposable syringe with a broad-spectrum antibiotic and shot it into the biceps of his own left arm.

  All this took time. It was almost eight o'clock when he checked his wristwatch again. He reversed back down the logging trail and on to the main mountain road. He drove slowly past the top of the cliff, and the tracks of his tires and the imprint of his feet showed clearly in the soft earth of the verge. He considered trying to obliterate them, and thought about the driver of the timber lorry who had seen him there. I've hung around here long enough, he decided. If I'm going to stop Chetti Singh, I've got to get back to Lilongwe.

  And he set off back towards the capital.

  As he drew closer to the urban areas, the traffic on the road was heavier. He drove sedately, avoiding drawing attention to himself.

  Many of the vehicles he passed were Landrovers or Toyotas, so his truck was not remarkable. However, he regretted the touch of vanity that had led him to display his personal logo so prominently. Never thought I'd make a fugitive from justice, he muttered, but still he knew that he could no longer parade around Lilongwe in the Landcruiser.

  He drove to the airport and left the truck in the public carpark. He took his spare toilet-kit and a clean shirt from his sports grip and went to the men's washrooms in the airport building to clean up. He bundled his torn and blood-stained shirt and jersey and stuffed them into the refuse bin. Although it was still stiff and sore, he did not want to disturb the wound.

  After he had shaved, he dressed in a clean shirt whose long sleeves covered his bandaged arm.

  When he checked his image in the washroom mirror he was reasonably respectable-looking and he headed for the public telephone booths in the main concourse.

  A South African Airways flight from Johannesburg had just landed and the concourse was crowded with tourists and their luggage. No one paid him any attention. The police emergency number was prominently displayed on the wall above the payphone. He disguised his voice by muffling it with a folded handkerchief over the mouthpiece and by speaking in Swahili. I want to report a robbery and a murder, he told the female police operator. Give me a senior officer urgently. This is Inspector Mopola.

  The voice was deep and authoritative. You have information of a murder?

  Listen carefully, Daniel told him, still in Swahili. I'm only going to say this once. The ivory stolen from Chiwewe National Park is here in Lilongwe. At least eight people were murdered during the robbery.

  The stolen goods are hidden in tea-chests which are being stored at the warehouses of the Chetti Singh Trading Company in the light industrial area. You had better hurry. They will be moved soon. Who is this speaking, please? the inspector asked. That isn't important. just get down there fast and get that ivory, Daniel told him, and hung up.

  He went to the Avis car rental counter in the airport concourse. The Avis girl gave him a sweet smile and allotted him a blue Volkswagen Golf.

  I'm sorry. Without a reservation that is all we have available.

  Before he left the carpark, he stopped beside his dusty old Landcruiser and surreptitiously transferred the shotgun wrapped in tarpaulin to the boot of the Volkswagen. Then he retrieved his Zeiss binoculars and slipped them into the cubbyhole. As he drove away, he checked that the Landcruiser was tucked away at the furthest end of the crowded lot where it would escape casual observation.

  He kept to the south side of the railway tracks, and found his way through the streets of the business area to the open-air market that he had noticed during his earlier explorations of the town.

  At ten-thirty in the morning the market was crowded with vendors displaying their wares and shoppers haggling over them. Dozens of trucks and mini-buses thronged the area around it. They gave him cover. He parked the little blue Volkswagen amongst them, positioning her carefully. The market was on rising ground that overlooked the railway tracks and the light industrial area beyond.

  He found himself less than half a mile from the Chetti Singh warehouse and the Toyota workshops, so close that he could read the huge lettering of the company signboard on the buildings with the naked eye. Through the nine-power lens of the Zeiss binoculars he had a fine view of the front of the warehouse and the main doors. He could almost make out the expressions on the faces of the men working on the loading ramps.

  A regular stream of trucks passed in and out of the main warehouse gates, amongst them he recognised the big pantechnicon and trailer.

  However, there was no sign yet of any police activity and it was almost forty minutes since he had made his phone call to them.

  Come on, people! Get the lead out, he muttered impatiently.

  As he said it he saw a shunting locomotive come puffing up the main line to the rail spur that entered the warehouse complex.

  It was running in reverse, the engine-driver leaning out of his side window.

  As it approached, one of the warehouse guards swung open the mesh gate on the boundary fence and the loco rolled through, slowing as it entered the open doors of the warehouse.

  It passed out of Daniel's sight, but seconds later he heard the faint but characteristic clash of steel as the coupling engaged.

  There was another delay and then the loco re-emerged from the warehouse, drawing three trucks behind it. It gathered speed gradually as the heavily laden trucks gained momentum.

  The goods trucks were each covered by heavy-duty canvas covers.

  Daniel stared at them through the Zeiss binoculars but could make out no definite indication that the tea-chests were under those covers.

  He lowered the binoculars and hammered his clenched fist against the steering-wheel of the Volkswagen and groaned aloud with frustration.

  Where the hell were the police? It was at least an hour and a half since he had phoned them. Even in his agitation, he realised that it would certainly take them longer than that to obtain a search warrant.

  It just has to be the ivory, he muttered to himself. There was no other outbound cargo stacked on that ramp. It's the ivory, I'd take any odds, and it's on its way to Taiwan. The loco was drawing the three trucks sedately down the curving rail spur towards the main line and the goods yards, but it had to pass very close to where Daniel was parked on the outskirts of the market-place.

  Daniel started the Volkswagen and pulled out into the main road. He accelerated, passing a heavily laden lorry, and sped down to the level-crossing which the loco must cross to reach the main goods yard.

  The red warning lights were flashing, the warning bell trilling, and the swinging barrier came down in front of him to guard the crossing, forcing him to brake to a halt. The loco rumbled slowly over the crossing directly in front of the stationary Volkswagen, moving not much above walking speed.

  Daniel pulled on the handbrake, and, leaving the engine running, jumped down into the road and slipped under the barrier. The first truck rolled past close enough to touch.

  The railways consignment card was clipped into the holder on the side of the truck, and he read it easily as it came level and passed slowly in front of him.

  CONSIGNEE: LUCKY DRAGON INVESTMENT CO Destination: Taiwan via Beira Cargo: 250 cases Tea The last lingering doubt was dispelled. Daniel stared angrily after the departing train. They were going to get away with it, right under his nose.

  The warning lights switched off, the bell fell silent and the barrier began to rise as the loco and its rolling stock pulled away.

  Immediately the drivers of the traffic backed up behind the Volkswagen began to sound their horns and flash their
lights impatiently.

  Daniel strode back to the hire car and drove on. He took the first road to the left, running parallel to the railway tracks and found another place to park from where he had a view into the railway goods yard.

  He watched through the binoculars as the three trucks were shunted and coupled on to the end of a long goods train. The caboose was locked on behind them and, finally, the whole assembly of coaches and goods trucks pulled out of the yard.

  With a green mainline loco pulling them, it set off for Mozambique and the port of Beira five hundred miles away on the seaboard of the Indian Ocean.

  There was nothing he could do to stop it happening. Wild fantasies flashed through his mind, of trying to hijack the loco, of rushing down to police headquarters and demanding that they take immediate action before it was too late and the train crossed the border. Instead, he drove back to his original vantage point beside the open-air market and resumed his vigil through the binoculars.

  He felt tired and dispirited, and remembered that he had not slept at all the previous night. His arm was stiff and sore. He unwrapped the bandage and was relieved to see that there were no further obvious signs of infection. On the contrary the rips in his forearm were beginning to scab over as well as he could have hoped for. He replaced the bandage.

  While he watched the warehouse, he tried to work out some means of stopping the ivory shipment, but he knew that his hands were tied. In the end it all came down to the death of Chawe. Chetti Singh had only to point at him, and he stood accused of murder. He dared not draw official attention to himself.

  While he waited and watched, he thought about Johnny Nzou and Mavis and their children, mourning them and nursing his hatred for their murderers.

  Almost two hours after the goods train had left, he noticed sudden activity around the warehouse. Chetti Singh's green Cadillac drew up at the main gates, followed by two greypainted police Landrovers, each filled with uniformed constables. There was a short discussion with the guards at the gates, then the three vehicles drove into the property and parked beside the open warehouse doors. Eleven police constables led by an officer climbed out of the Landrovers. The officer spoke briefly to Chetti Singh beside the Cadillac. Through the binoculars Daniel saw that the Sikh appeared dapper and unconcerned;