Elephant Song

by Wilbur Smith

  What was his price? He mustn't set it too low, for that would arouse the cunning old oriental's suspicions immediately.

  Not too high either. Low enough to excite his greed, high enough not to alarm him. It was a nice calculation. He would have the duration of the flight to Taipei to consider it. That young fool Cheng has dropped me in it. It's only right that his father be made to pay. He thought about Ning Cheng Gong. He has been too good a choice, Tug smiled bitterly. He had asked for a ruthless one, and got more than he bid for.

  Of course, Tug had known about the forced ]about, but not the details of their treatment. He had not wanted to know.

  Neither had he known for certain about the use of the arsenic reagents, though he had suspected that Cheng was using them.

  The platinum recovery figures had been too high, the profits too good, for it not to be so. He had not wanted to know any of the unpleasant details. But, he thought philosophically, the enhanced profitability of the mining venture would make it easier to sell out his interests to Lucky Dragon.

  Ning Heng H'Sui would think he was getting the bargain of his life.

  Good luck, Lucky Dragon, Tug grunted. You're going to need all of it.

  Three months to the day since his last crossing Daniel stood on the moraine below the Ruwatamagufa glacier. This time he was properly equipped for the alpine conditions; there would be no more frostbite.

  And this time he was not alone.

  The line of porters, each man bowed forward against the headband of his pack, stretched back as far as Daniel could see into the mountain mist.

  They were all men of the Konjo tribe, dour mountaineers who could carry heavy loads at these high altitudes. There were six hundred and fifty porters, and each man carried an eighty-pound pack.

  In all, that made twenty-six tons of arms and ammunition.

  There were no sophisticated weapons in the loads, only the tried and true tools of the guerrilla and the terrorist, the ubiquitous AK 47 and the Uzi, the RPD light machine-gun and the RPG rocket-launcher, Tokarev automatic pistols and American M26 fragmentation grenades, or at least convincing copies of them made in Yugoslavia or Romania.

  All of these were readily obtainable at short notice in any quantity required, as long as the buyer had cash. Daniel was amazed how easy it had been. Tug Harrison had supplied him with the names and telephone numbers of five dealers, one in Florida, two in Europe and two in the Middle East. Take your pick, Tug had invited. But check what you're getting before you pay. Some of that stuff has been floating around for forty years. Daniel and his instructors had personally opened every case and laboriously checked each piece.

  Daniel had calculated that the very minimum number of instructors he needed was four. He went back to Zimbabwe to find them. They were all men he had fought with or against during the bush war. They were all Swahili speakers and they were all black. A white face attracted a lot of attention in Ubomo.

  The leader of the group of four was an ex-sergeant-major in the Ballantyne Scouts, a man who had fought with men like Roland Ballantyne and Sean Courtney. He was a magnificent figure of a Matabele warrior called Morgan Tembi.

  There was another recruit in the party, a cameraman to replace Bonny Mahon. Shadrach Mbeki was a black South African exile who had done good work for the BBC, the best man that Daniel could find at such short notice.

  To the north Mount Stanley was hidden in clouds, and the cloud dropped down to form a grey cold ceiling only a hundred feet above their heads, but to the east below the cloud it was open. Daniel gazed down upon the forest almost ten thousand feet below. it looked like the ocean, green and endless, except to the north where a dark cancer had bitten into the green. The open mined area was deeper and wider than when Daniel had last seen it from this vantage point only a few short months ago.

  The cloud and the mist dropped over them abruptly, blotting out the distant carnage, and Daniel roused himself and started down, the long column of porters unwinding behind him.

  Sepoo was waiting for him where the bamboo forest began at the ten thousand foot level. It is good to see you again, Kuokoa, my brother.

  Kara-Ki sends you her heart, he told Daniel. She asks that you come to her swiftly. She says she can wait no longer. The men of Sepoo's clan had cut out the trail through the bamboo, widening it so that the porters could pass through without having to stoop.

  Below the bamboo where the true rain forest began at the six thousand foot level, Patrick Omeru was waiting with his teams of Uhali recruits to take over from the Konjo mountaineers.

  Daniel paid off the Konjo and watched them climb back through the bamboo into their misty highlands. Then the Bambuti guided them on to the newly opened trail, back towards Gondola.

  After Kelly's message Daniel could not restrain himself to the pace of the heavily laden convoy, and he and Sepoo hurried ahead. Kelly was on the trail coming to meet them, and they came upon each other suddenly around a bend in the forest path.

  Kelly and Daniel came up short and stared at each other, neither of them seemed able to move or even to speak until Kelly said huskily, without taking her eyes from Daniel's face, Go on ahead, Sepoo. Far, far ahead!

  Sepoo giggled happily and went without looking back.

  During Daniel's absence, Victor Omeru had built his new headquarters in the edge of the forest beyond the waterfall at Gondola where it would be hidden from any possible aerial surveillance.

  It was a simple baraza with half walls and a thatched roof. He sat with Daniel on the raised dais at one end of the hut.

  Daniel was meeting the resistance leaders, many of them for the first time. They were seated facing the dais on long splitpole benches, like students in a lecture theatre. There were thirty-eight of them, mostly Uhali tribesmen, but six were influential Hita who were disenchanted with Taffari and had thrown in their lot with Victor Omeru as soon as they heard that he was still alive. These Hita were vital to the plan of action that Daniel had devised and discussed with Victor.

  Two of them were highly placed in the army and one was a senior police officer. The other three were government officials who would be able to arrange permits and licences for travel and transport. All of them would be able to supply vital intelligence.

  At first there had been some natural objection to Daniel's new cameraman filming the proceedings, but Victor had interceded and now Shadrach Mbeki was working so unobtrusively that they soon forgot his presence. As a reward for his assistance Victor Omeru had agreed that Daniel could make a film record of the entire campaign.

  Daniel opened the meeting by introducing his four Marabele military instructors. As each man role and faced the audience, Daniel recited his curriculum vitae. They were all impressive men, but Morgan Tembi in particular they regarded with awe. Between them they have trained thousands of fighting men, Daniel told them.

  They won't be interested in parade-ground drills or spit and polish.

  They will simply teach you to use the weapons we have brought over the mountains and to use them to the best possible effect. He looked at Patrick Omeru in the front row. Patrick, can you come up here and tell us how many men you have at your disposal, and where they are at the present time? Patrick had been busy during Daniel's absence. He had recruited almost fifteen hundred young men. Well done, Patrick, that's more than we need, Daniel told him. I was planning on a core of a thousand men, four units of two hundred and fifty, each under the command of one of the instructors. More than that will be difficult to conceal and deploy. However, we will be able to use the others in noncombatant roles. The staff conference went on for three days. At the last session Daniel addressed them again. Our plans are simple.

  That makes them good, there is less to go wrong. Our whole strategy is based on two principles.

  Number one is that we have to move fast. We have to be in a position to strike within weeks rather than months. Number two is total surprise.

  Our security must be iron-clad. if Taffari gets even a whiff of o
ur plans he'll crack down so hard that we'll have no chance of success whatsoever. There it is, gentlemen, speed and stealth. We will meet again here on the first of next month. By then President Omeru and I will have a detailed plan of action drawn up. Until then you will be taking orders from your instructors in the training-camps. Good luck to all of us. Pirri was confused and angry and filled with formless despair and hatred.

  For months now he had lived alone in the forest with not another man to talk to, or woman to laugh with. At night he lay alone in his carelessly built leaf hut far from the huts of other men and he thought of his youngest wife. She was sixteen years of age, with plump little breasts. He remembered the wetness and lubricious warmth of her body, and he moaned aloud in the darkness as he thought that he would never again know the comfort of a woman's body.

  During the day he was lethargic and without care. He no longer hunted with his old intensity. Sometimes he sat for hours gazing into one of the dark forest pools. Twice he heard the honey chameleon call and he did not follow. He grew thin and his beard began turning white.

  Once he heard a party of Bambuti women in the forest, laughing and chattering as they gathered mushrooms and roots. He crept close and spied upon them, and his heart felt as though it would break. He longed to join them, but knew he could not.

  Then one day while wandering alone, Pirri cut the trail of a party of wazungu. He studied their tracks and read that there were twenty of them, and that they moved with purpose and determination as though on a journey. It was exceedingly strange to find other men in the forest, for the Hita and Uhali were afraid of hobgoblins and monsters, and never entered the tall trees if they could avoid doing so. Pirri recovered a little of his old curiosity, and he followed the tracks of the wazungu.

  They were moving well, and it took him many hours to catch up with them.

  Then he discovered a most remarkable thing.

  Deep in the forest he found a camp where many men were assembled.

  They were all armed with the Banduki that had a strange banana-shaped appendage hanging from beneath either a tail or a penis, Pirri was not certain. And while Pirri watched in astonishment from his hiding-place, these men fired their banduki and made a terrible clattering clamour that frightened the birds into flight and sent the monkeys scampering away across the forest galleries.

  All this was extraordinary, but most marvelous of all was that these men were not Hita. These days only Hita soldiers in uniform carried banduki. These men were Uhali.

  Pirri thought about what he had seen-for many days, and then the acquisitive instinct, which had been dormant in him since the coming of the Molimo, began to stir. He thought about Chetti Singh, and wondered if Chetti Singh would give him tobacco if he told him about the armed men in the forest.

  He hated Chetti Singh who had cheated and lied to him but as he thought about the tobacco, the saliva jetted from under his tongue. He could almost taste it in his mouth. The old tobacco hunger was like a pain in his chest and his belly.

  The next day he -went to find Chetti Singh and he whistled and sang as he went. He was coming alive again after the Molimo death. He stopped only once, to hunt a colobus monkey that he spied in the treetops eating the yellow fruit of the mongongo tree. His old skills came back to him and he crept to within twenty paces of the monkey without it suspecting his presence, and he shot a poisoned arrow that struck one of its legs.

  The monkey fled shrieking through the branches, but it did not go far before it fell to earth, paralysed by the poison, its lips curled up in the dreadful rictus of agony as it frothed and trembled and shook before it died. The poison on Pirri's arrow was fresh and strong. He had found the nest of the little beetles only days before and had dug them up and crushed them to paste in a bark crucible and smeared his arrow-tips with the juices.

  With his belly full of monkey meat and the wet skin folded into his barkfibre bag, he went on towards the rendezvous with the one-armed Sikh.

  Pirri waited two days at the rendezvous, the clearing in the forest that had once been a logging camp but was now overgrown and reverting to jungle. He wondered if the Uhali storekeeper who kept the little duka on the side of the main highway had passed on his message to Chetti Singh.

  Then he began to believe that Chetti Singh had received the message but would not come to him. Perhaps Chetti Singh had learned of the Molimo death and was also ostracising him.

  Perhaps nobody would ever speak to Pirri again. His recent high spirits faded as he sat alone in the forest waiting for Chetti Singh to come, and the sense of despair and confusion overwhelmed him all over again.

  Chetti Singh came on the afternoon of the second day. Pirri heard his Landrover long before it arrived and suddenly his anger and hatred had something on which to focus.

  He thought how Chetti Singh had cheated and tricked him so many times before. He thought how he had never given him everything he had promised; always there was short-weight of tobacco, and water in the gin.

  Then he thought how Chetti Singh had made him kill the elephant.

  Pirri had never been as angry as he was now. He was too angry even to lash out at the trees around him, too angry to shout aloud. His throat was tight and closed, and his hands shook. Chetti Singh was the one who had brought the curse of the Molimo down upon him. Chetti Singh had killed his soul.

  Now he forgot about the armed wazungu in the forest. He even forgot about the tobacco hunger, as he waited for Chetti Singh to come.

  The mud-streaked Landrover butted its way into the clearing, pushing down the thick secondary growth of vegetation- ahead of it. It stopped and the door opened and Chetti Singh stepped down. He looked around him at the forest and wiped his, face with a white cloth. He had put on much weight recently. He was plumper now than he had been before he had lost the arm. His shirt was stained dark with sweat between his shoulder-blades where he had sat against the leather seat.

  He mopped his face and adjusted his turban before he shouted into the forest, Pirri! Come out. Pirri sniggered with laughter and whispered aloud, mimicking the Sikh. Pirri! Come out! And then his voice was bitter Sechow he oozes grease like a joint of pork on the coals.

  Pirri, come out!

  Chetti Singh strutted around the clearing impatiently. After a while he opened his fly and urinated, then he zipped his trousers and looked at his wristwatch. Pirri, are you there? Pirri did not answer him, and Chetti Singh said something angrily in a language that Pirri did not understand, but he knew that it was an insult. I am going now, Chetti Singh shouted, and marched back to the Landrover. O master, Pirri called to him. I see you! Do not go! Chetti Singh spun around to face the forest. Where are you?

  he shouted.

  I am here, o master. I have something for you that will make you very happy. Something of great value. What is it? Chetti Singh asked. Where are you? Here I am. Pirri stepped out of the shadows with the bow slung over his shoulder. What stupidity is this? Chetti Singh demanded. Why do you hide from me? I am your slave. Pirri grinned ingratiatingly. And I have a gift for you. What is it?

  Elephant teeth? Chetti Singh asked, and there was greed in his voice.

  Better than that. Something of greater value.

  Show me, Chetti Singh demanded. Will you give me tobacco? I will give you as, much tobacco as the gift is worth. I will show you, Pirri agreed. Follow me, o master. Where is it? How far is it? Only a short distance, only that far. Pirri indicated a small arc of the sky with two fingers, less than an hour's travel.

  Chetti Singh looked dubious. it is a thing of great beauty and value, Pirri wheedled. You will be very pleased. All right, the Sikh agreed.

  Lead me to this treasure. Pirri went slowly, allowing Chetti Singh to keep close behind him. He went in a wide circle through the densest part of the forest, crossing the same stream twice. There was no sun in the forest; a man steered by the fall of the land and the run of the rivers.

  Pirri showed Chetti Singh the same river twice from different directions.
By now, the Sikh was totally lost, blundering blindly after the little-pygmy with no sense of distance or direction.

  After the second hour Chetti Singh was sweating very heavily and his voice was rough. How much further is it? he asked.

  Very close, Pirri assured him. I will rest for a while, Chetti Singh said and sat down on a log. When he looked up again, Pirri had vanished.

  Chetti Singh was not alarmed. He was accustomed to the elusive comings and goings of the Bambuti. Come back here! he ordered, but there was no reply. Chetti Singh sat alone for a long time. Once or twice he called out to the pygmy. Each time his voice was shriller.

  The panic was building up in him.

  After another hour he was pleading. Please, Pirri, I will give you.

  anything you ask. Please show yourself. Pirri laughed. His laughter floated through the trees and Chetti Singh sprang to his feet and plunged off the faint track. He stumbled towards where he thought he had heard the laughter. Pirri! he begged. Please come to me. But the laughter came from a new direction. Chetti Singh ran towards it.

  After a while he stopped, and looked about him wildly. He was streaming sweat and panting. Laughter, mocking and faint, trembled in the humid air. Chetti Singh turned around and staggered after it. it was like chasing a butterfly or a puff of smoke. The sound flitted and flirted through the trees, first from one direction, then the other.

  Chetti Singh was weeping now. His turban had come loose and hooked on a branch and he did not stop to retrieve it. His hair and beard tumbled down, streaming down his chest and flying out behind him. His hair was soaked with sweat.

  He fell and dragged himself up and ran on, his clothing stained with mud and leaf mould. He screamed his terror to the trees, and the laughter became fainter and fainter, until at last he heard it no more.

  Chetti Singh fell on his knees and held up his hand in supplication.