Bluebolt One

by Philip McCutchan

  He wheeled round, fists clenched. He demanded, “What are you doing with her?”

  “Never mind for now.”

  "I—"

  A heavy blow took him in his side and he gasped, stumbled backward. There were two more Africans in the room and they came for him now, took his arms and butted him brutally in the kidneys with their knees until he almost fainted. When they had finished Wiley went through his pockets, removing the special identity card which, in the circumstances of the journey to Jinda as he had thought, Shaw had kept on his person.

  Shaw gasped, “The girl. . . I want to know. . . she hasn’t done you any harm.”

  Wiley grinned. “If we had not brought her she might have done us a considerable amount of harm by opening her mouth.”

  “Better if you’d killed her back in London—like you thought you’d killed me.”

  The huge African sighed. He said, “Be reasonable, Commander Shaw. We thought she might come in handy—and she has. She has in effect brought you here, is that not so? If she had been known to have died in London, we could not have used her name in this way.”

  He gave a soft, jeering laugh.

  Shaw said painfully, “You bastard. . . what are you going to do with us now?”

  “I thought I’d already told you. You are going to have a grandstand view of the final act, you and the girl. Do you know what the last act is going to be?” He laughed again in Shaw’s face, then nodded towards two Africans. “These men do not understand English, so I can tell you now.”

  “Go on.”

  “All right, Commander. It is just this: We have arranged for Bluebolt’s missile to be brought down. . . on African territory.”

  Shaw stared at him, unbelievingly at first, unable to take it in. He repeated stupidly, “On African territory . . . but why?”

  “Because Tshemambi is still adamant. He is so obstinate, that old fool. So we have to take other measures. It is as simple as that. . . and in many ways it suits us better, because what we shall now do will be very much more far-reaching than if we were merely to cause the removal of the Bluebolt post. Think, Commander, think—of the psychological effect!”

  Still Shaw stared at him. A vein began throbbing away in his temple and he felt that his head must burst as he started to realize. . . . He breathed, “So Hartog was really with you all the time—that’s how you’re going to do it—”

  “Quite correct. You British,” Wiley said witheringly, “you think you are so very, very clever. You think that once a man is screened by the fools in your security services he is safe for ever. But he isn’t, you see, he isn’t! Now—think what will be the effect on the coloured peoples throughout all the world—India, Malaya, the West Indies. . . even the coloured people in London and New York—think what will be the effect on all of them when a British-American satellite sends its missile down from the Manalati base. . . on to Ghana or Sierra Leone, the Cameroons, the Congo or Kenya, or other lands. For how much longer after that will the West retain what is left of its hold on the minds of men—and for how much longer will the uncommitted nations remain uncommitted, Commander Shaw? Does this not look very much like the end of a way of life, Commander, the end of the road for Britain and America—whose overseas policies have in any case been suspect for a long time?” He added jeeringly, “Your propaganda machines will never correct the balance which will swing against them!”

  “Do you really mean all that? Would you really sacrifice your own people, Wiley?”

  The man’s big face glowered at him. He said with emphasis, “There is nothing I would not do to ensure success. If some people have to die, they are only drops in the ocean, sacrifices to a greater objective. And of course the people who are helping me do not know what my plan really is. They believe that with Hartog’s benevolent assistance I am going to disarm Bluebolt by making the British bring the missile down harmlessly in the sea. When it lands in fact on Africa instead of in the sea, I shall ensure without doubt that it is the British and Americans who get the blame for it. That will be very easy.” He jabbed a finger towards the agent. “You are going to witness the attainment of our objective. You, yourself, are going to give the signal which will bring the missile down from Bluebolt. . . exactly how, you will find out a little later on.”

  Wiley broke off as another man came in and spoke rapidly to him. As he turned back to Shaw, he said, “Our transport has arrived . . . and now there is no time to lose. We must get away from Jinda in case the man Geisler should be able to get a search made for you when you do not return.” He added, “We shall be going to a village called Zambi, which is not so very far from your control-station, my dear fellow.”

  Wiley snapped an order in the local dialect to the two Africans, who let go of Shaw’s arms and sent him staggering into a corner. As he fell, half dazed, the men came forward and tied his hands and ankles securely. After that he was carried out of the room, back along the passage, and into the street, where he was pushed into the back of what looked like an ex-British Army truck. He was laid flat on the dirty, littered boards. The baying, the dreadful hysteria of the mob, beat in his ears, the terrible sound of the blood-lust which would so very soon now lead to rape and plunder, arson and wholesale murder of the remaining whites. He heard a few isolated shots away in the distance. A moment later Gillian Ross, her face dead white but dry-eyed, was pushed, bound as he was, into the truck with him and the two Africans climbed in behind her with heavy revolvers in their hands. Their faces were greasy with sweat, their eyeballs rolling, fingers itchy on the triggers. Shaw knew that even if he were able to make any move, he would be dead before he’d lifted a hand—and so would the girl.

  The truck’s hooter blared out and a man in front began yelling. Then the truck vibrated into life and slowly they moved off; slowly because somehow the word had spread—the bush-telegraph in action, and men had come to watch. Fists smacked against the hood supports, came through gashes in the torn canvas of the old truck. Faces leered in over the tailboard, jeering, triumphant, shiny, menacing; men spat derisively, made insulting gestures with their fingers, ran along with the slow-moving vehicle, reaching in, sagging across the tailboard to paw the girl. The two Negroes on guard grinned happily, joining in the fun, salaciously, their hands roving. Shaw felt the blood pound through his body, felt the fierce upsurge of stored fury, impotent fury, as his fingernails dug into his palms. Then the truck went ahead faster and the predatory hands fell away. There was more firing, a little closer now, and the streets began to clear quickly. Shaw felt that Tshemambi must still—as yet—be more or less in charge of the situation; but he could never hope to keep control once Bluebolt’s dreadful, devastating load was brought down on to the African continent. The old Prime Minister and his moderate Government could never hope to survive that storm.

  The truck put on speed, shot ahead, and rattled away from Jinda.

  Gillian Ross had rolled close to Shaw and now she lay there inert and hopeless, her eyes shut but red-rimmed, and every now and then Shaw could feel the quiver that ran through her body, the body that he could now see carried the clear marks of beatings.

  After a hideous, nightmare drive of some fifteen hours during which the rains still held off following the intermittent pattern usual at the start of the wet season, and during which Shaw was convinced that every hairpin bend taken dangerously on two wheels must be their last, the truck turned off into a narrow track leading down to the tribal village of Zambi in the Naka Valley. That track was close and overgrown, and branches snapped, flipped along the sides as they drove in, once more tearing the canvas. It was a continual flip-flap of sound.

  Their approach must have been spotted some way ahead, and the runners had reported their coming to the headman of the village; for they were still some way off, deep in the green tunnel, when Shaw caught the heavy beat of native drums and then the mounting sound, the flesh-creeping baying sound which he had heard in Jinda but now much more primitive and menacing; and underneath it the unmi
stakable note of pure hysteria, a hysteria worked up probably by the local ju-ju man and by the native beer.

  Men and women came out to meet the truck, howling, chanting, armed with wickedly tipped spears and short, thick clubs, their near-naked bodies grotesquely ochred and carved, shining with grease under a pale early-morning sun as the truck emerged from the hacked-out track into the village clearing.

  Once again, there was the general obeisance, the respect, and the joy. Once again that savage welcome went up from hundreds of throats:

  “Edo, Edo, Edo. . ."

  Yet again evil faces leered. Other figures had huge carved headdresses in the form of faces covering them to their shoulders. The truck slowed, stopped in a central compound ringed with mud-walled, grass-roofed huts, a compound now lined deep with liquor-inflamed men and women.

  There was a hush then, and Shaw heard the men in front of the truck getting down. The door was banged to and then the tailboard was let down and hands reached in, roughly dragged Shaw and the girl across the boards and untied the ropes around their ankles as Wiley, who had evidently been in the front of the vehicle, looked in at them. Opposite there was a long, low hut with a canopy extended over a raised platform in front of it, and in the centre of this platform, flanked by tall guards, sat a small, wizened, white-haired African with a plumed cap on his head, and dressed in a richly embroidered robe which seemed almost to smother his skinny frame.

  This would be the headman.

  As Wiley approached, the old man got up. Together with his guards, he prostrated himself at Wiley’s feet, remaining there until the big man bent and lightly touched him on the shoulder. Rising, the old headman and his guards took up their places on the platform again, together with Wiley now, and then Wiley spoke to him in the local dialect. After some minutes of talk, the headman gave a signal to his guards, and four of them left the platform and advanced on Shaw and Gillian Ross.

  They were turned roughly around and sharp weapons pricked into their backs.

  There was a small, choked cry from the girl.

  Shaw bit back the words that came to his lips, knew he could achieve nothing by making any protests now. He murmured, “Hold on, Gillian. I’m going to get you clear . . . just remember that, whatever they do.”

  She gave a shiver, drew in her breath sharply as the men pushed her forward. She looked back briefly over her shoulder and Shaw caught the gleam of pure terror, of shock, in her eyes. And then she was gone away from him, across the compound, shoulders drooping, the men’s hands dark and hot on her white flesh. Shaw watched the men push her into one of the huts and then take up positions outside the heavy door which they pulled across the entrance, a door held in place by a thick wooden cross-beam resting in brackets on either side.

  After that he was taken himself to a similar hut not far from the girl’s. The men tied his bound hands to a big stake set in the centre, but loosely and on a long stretch so that he could lie down, however uncomfortably—lie down, he thought cynically, so that he would get some rest and not collapse from exhaustion before the climax—and then he was left alone.

  All that day he heard the guards patrolling outside the hut and all the time there was the incessant, inescapable beat of the drums, throbbing into his brain, and the rising and falling chant of the villagers. He was visited only twice, when women brought him food and water. They didn’t speak to him; they merely set down the earthenware vessels and went out again, breasts swinging. Shaw was left alone with his aching thoughts, the bitterly self-reproachful thoughts which revolved around the way in which Hartog had persuaded him to believe in that story ... and yet the odd thing was, he still couldn’t help feeling that the man wasn’t lying, at any rate not wholly. Could it be that Hartog really had fooled Edo and the Cult after all; that they were waiting for something, when they gave that as yet undefined signal, that wouldn’t happen at all?

  Shaw felt a stirring of hope; but it faded when he remembered that Hartog must have known about Edo’s plan all the time he was talking to him yesterday morning, had known all about it and hadn’t told Shaw so that he could act on it. When he’d been down where the train had been attacked, that must have been when he was getting his final orders. There could have been so much more behind the work he’d done for Russia than he’d been prepared to admit. And there were those insane flickers in the man’s eyes; whatever he was up to, it was something pretty terrible. . . .

  Everything depended on Stephen Geisler’s alertness now.

  As night came down over Zambi village the flicker of fires came redly through the cracks around the hut’s door, sending ghostly shadows chasing across the walls; and all the time still there was the deadly monotonous drumbeat and a sound as of something unnamable going on outside to the accompaniment of that dismal, chilling chant. There were hoarse men’s cries, excited voices, and the shivering, exultant cries of young girls . . . there was a kind of foreboding about it, as though the villagers were building up to a climax, the grand finale of some ancient, evil ceremony—the last act which Wiley had spoken of back in Jinda the day before.

  In spite of his mental turmoil and his terrible anxiety, Shaw had fallen into a light sleep by the time they came for him, which was in the very early hours of the following morning. That sleep, and the food and drink which he had had during the day, had refreshed him and the aches and pains of the truck-ride from Jinda had receded.

  The door was dragged back and two Africans armed with those short clubs shaped like legs of lambs stood there, while others untied his hands from the stake, and then they beckoned him out, and spoke abruptly to him in their own tongue. Flexing his muscles, easing away the cramp, Shaw obeyed the obvious meaning of the order. He went forward, walked out into the light of the fires and the torches, beneath a mist-shrouded moon which betokened the restarting of the rains, the lull ending. Immediately in front of the hut was drawn up a double file of blacks in their full ceremonial dress; over all there was that chanting which Shaw had heard, mounting and falling away again, all through the day and night. As he appeared it changed to a kind of growl, a deep-throated roar of anticipation in which was mingled revenge and cruelty and hate and joy, as though all the Dark Gods were urging these men on to some terrible deed through which they would attain their heaven.

  “Ai. . .ya, ai . . .ya. . .“Kill. . . kill. . . kill. . .

  A few moments later there was a loud, commanding cry from the headman’s verandah, and at once the chanting stopped, stopped on a breath, every man together. It was just as if a radio had been switched off, a radio that had been going at full blast and had now left a dreadful silence behind it, a void. . . a void which would have to be filled with something very soon. Ahead of his guards now, Shaw was marched through the ranks of men, past the muscular bodies, the sweat-bright bodies on which the flickering firelight glinted redly and was reflected by the metal of the barbed spears and the ornamentation. Their hips jiggled still to the now dead rhythm of the silent drums; Shaw felt their breath hot on his face and the strong smell of native sweat was heavy on the air, the air which was very still and close. Then the drums started sounding out again ominously, low and vibrant at first, then swelling to a crescendo roar of noise as more and more came in. The Africans began moving, nightmare figures in those weird headdresses and with bones rattling at their ankles, closing in behind Shaw, opening out in front as he went along. He had the curious sensation that he was being as it were digested, pushed along willy-nilly by some extraordinary process of expansion and contraction, an undulation like some gross alimentary canal. He was automaton-like in the grip of some power and strength which was too great for him; it was as if he, too, had fallen under the spell of the Dark Continent, that he too had been caught up at last in something only partly understood, some relic of the dim, barbarous, primeval past which had strayed into the later twentieth century to distort his mind and weaken his will. And yet, as he walked through those ranks, his perception didn’t altogether leave him, and after a while
he became conscious of something else in the air, some vague undercurrent, a curious tension which, it seemed to him, went a little way beyond the forced hysteria of chant and drumbeat and ceremonial.

  It was fear.

  Beyond that he couldn’t place it; but he was certain in his own mind that it was fear, a creeping fear which stole through the hearts and minds even of these over-excited men and women, through the war-paint and the fumes of the native drink which was partly responsible for this dreadful frenzied charade, through the legacy of a million ancestors’ beliefs.

  If only he could get at what was causing that unexpected undercurrent of fear, and then exploit it, he could perhaps begin to hope again.

  At the end of the human avenue was the platform of the headman’s hut. Wiley was sitting there with the headman again, both flanked as before by the tall, impressive bodies of the personal guard. Then, as the ranks parted, Shaw caught sight of something else, something that made him stop dead and catch his breath.

  Before the hut a shallow pit, grave-shaped, had been dug in the earth still soft from the recent rains and beside it, naked except for a few pathetic strips of torn clothing, lay Gillian Ross. Shaw’s horrified thoughts flew back to the scene he’d watched back in London at the club in Camden Town.

  The guards pushed him forward until he was standing close by that yawning grave, his feet practically touching the girl’s flesh. Looking down, he saw the tear-stained face appealing to him mutely.

  He looked away, feeling suddenly weak at the knees, even though he’d known all along that they must both die now and that their ending wouldn’t be easy.

  He met Wiley’s grin. The big African said, “Well, Commander. As you may have gathered, the time has nearly come.” He stood up, looked triumphantly over the crowds of villagers, then, commandingly, he clapped his hands together and the men closed in about Shaw again, forced him to turn around. Then he saw the girl being lifted, carried past him on the shoulders of the Africans to the far side of the clearing. He watched, feeling a thrill of revulsion; then he was pushed along between the howling ranks again and when he came closer he saw the pale white gleam of naked flesh in the light of the fires, the girl being tied to a thick post set in the ground. She was trembling all over, her face was ashy grey, but no sound came from her—no cry, no tears now. It was, Shaw thought, as if she was in a state of shock and was almost unaware of what was happening to her. If so, that was the best way now. He saw her glance flicker round to him, and he saw that her eyes were dull, hopeless.