by Wilbur Smith
Before he could reach it the naked body of a Baluba rushed at him. Bruce ducked under the sweep of the panga and grappled with him. They fell locked together, the man’s body slippery and sinuous against him, and the smell of him fetid as rancid butter.
Bruce found the pressure point below the elbow of his knife arm and dug in with his thumb. The Baluba yelled and his panga clattered on the floorboards. Bruce wrapped his arm round the man’s neck while with his free hand he reached for his bayonet.
The Baluba was clawing for Bruce’s eyes with his fingers, his nails scored the side of Bruce’s nose, but Bruce had his bayonet out now. He placed the point against the man’s chest and pressed it in. He felt the steel scrape against the bone of a rib and the man redoubled his struggles at the sting of it. Bruce twisted the blade, working it in with his wrist, forcing the man’s head backwards with his other arm.
The point of the bayonet scraped over the bone and found the gap between. Like taking a virgin, suddenly the resistance to its entrance was gone and it slid home full length. The Baluba’s body jerked mechanically and the bayonet twitched in Bruce’s fist.
Bruce did not even wait for the man to die. He pulled the blade out against the sucking reluctance of tissue that clung to it and scrambled to his feet in time to see Ruffy pick another Baluba from his feet and hurl him bodily over the guard rail.
Bruce snatched the rifle from the gendarme’s dead hands and stepped to the guard rail. They were coming over the side, those below shouting and pushing at the ones above.
Like shooting a row of sparrows from a fence with a shotgun, thought Bruce grimly, and with one long burst he cleared the rail. Then he leaned out and sprayed the piles below the bridge. The rifle was empty. He reloaded with a magazine from his pocket. But it was all over. They were dropping back into the river, the piles below the bridge were clear of men, their heads bobbed away downstream.
Bruce lowered his rifle and looked about him. Three of his gendarmes were killing the man that Bruce had wounded, standing over him and grunting as they thrust down with their bayonets. The man was still wailing.
Bruce looked away.
One horn of the crescent moon showed above the trees; it had a gauzy halo about it.
Bruce lit a cigarette and behind him those gruesome noises ceased.
‘Are you okay, boss?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. How about you, Ruffy?’
‘I got me a terrible thirst now. Hope nobody trod on my pack.’
About four minutes from the first shot to the last, Bruce guessed. That’s the way of war, seven hours of waiting and boredom, then four minutes of frantic endeavour. Not only of war either, he thought. The whole of life is like that.
Then he felt the trembling in his thighs and the first spasm of nausea as the reaction started.
‘What’s happening?’ A shout floated across from the laager. Bruce recognized Hendry’s voice. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘We’ve beaten them off,’ Bruce shouted back. ‘Everything under control. You can go to sleep again.’
And now I have got to sit down quickly, he told himself.
Except for the tattoos upon his cheeks and forehead the dead Baluba’s features were little different from those of the Bambala and Bakuba men who made up the bulk of Bruce’s command.
Bruce played the flashlight over the corpse. The arms and legs were thin but stringy with muscle, and the belly bulged out from years of malnutrition. It was an ugly body, gnarled and crabbed. With distaste Bruce moved the light back to the features. The bone of the skull formed harsh angular planes beneath the skin, the nose was flattened and the thick lips had about them a repellent brutality. They were drawn back slightly to reveal the teeth which had been filed to sharp points like those of a shark.
‘This is the last one, boss. I’ll toss him overboard.’ Ruffy spoke in the darkness beside Bruce.
‘Good.’
Ruffy heaved and grunted, the corpse splashed below them and Ruffy wiped his hands on the guard rail, then came to sit beside Bruce.
‘Goddam apes.’ Ruffy’s voice was full of the bitter tribal antagonism of Africa. ‘When we get shot of these U.N. people there’ll be a bit of sorting out to do. They’ve got a few things to learn, these bloody Baluba.’
And so it goes, thought Bruce, Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, black and white, Bambala and Baluba.
He checked the time, another two hours to dawn. His nervous reaction from physical violence had abated now; the hand that held the cigarette no longer trembled.
‘They won’t come again,’ said Ruffy. ‘You can get some sleep now if you want. I’ll keep an eye open, boss.’
‘No, thanks. I’ll wait with you.’ His nerves had not settled down enough for sleep.
‘How’s it for a beer?’
‘Thanks.’
Bruce sipped the beer and stared out at the watch fires round the laager. They had burned down to puddles of red ash but Bruce knew that Ruffy was right. The Baluba would not attack again that night.
‘So how do you like freedom?’
‘How’s that, boss?’ The question puzzled Ruffy and he turned to Bruce questioningly.
‘How do you like it now the Belgians have gone?’
‘It’s pretty good, I reckon.’
‘And if Tshombe has to give in to the Central Government?’
‘Those mad Arabs!’ snarled Ruffy. ‘All they want is our copper. They’re going to have to get up early in the morning to take it. We’re in the saddle here.’
The great jousting tournament of the African continent. I’m in the saddle, try to unhorse me! As in all matters of survival it was not a question of ethics and political doctrine (except to the spectators in Whitehall, Moscow, Washington and Peking). There were big days coming, thought Bruce. My own country, when she blows, is going to make Algiers look like an old ladies’ sewing circle.
– 26 –
The sun was up, throwing long shadows out into the clearing, and Bruce stood beside the Ford and looked across the bridge at the corrugated iron shelter on the far bank.
He relaxed for a second and let his mind run unhurriedly over his preparations for the crossing. Was there something left undone, some disposition which could make it more secure?
Hendry and a dozen men were in the shelter across the bridge, ready to meet any attack on that side.
Shermaine would take the Ford across first. Then the lorries would follow her. They would cross empty to minimize the danger of the bridge collapsing, or being weakened for the passage of the tanker. After each lorry had crossed, Hendry would shuttle its load and passengers over in the shelter and deposit them under the safety of the canvas canopy.
The last lorry would go over fully loaded. That was regrettable but unavoidable.
Finally Bruce himself would drive the tanker across. Not as an act of heroism, although it was the most dangerous business of the morning, but because he would trust no one else to do it, not even Ruffy. The five hundred gallons of fuel it contained was their safe-conduct home. Bruce had taken the precaution of filling all the gasoline tanks in the convoy in case of accidents, but they would need replenishing before they reached Msapa Junction.
He looked down at Shermaine in the driver’s seat of the Ford.
‘Keep it in low gear, take her over slowly but steadily. Whatever else you do, don’t stop.’
She nodded. She was composed and she smiled at him. Bruce felt a stirring of pride as he looked at her, so small and lovely, but today she was doing man’s work. He went on. ‘As soon as you are over, I will send one of the trucks after you. Hendry will put six of his men into it and then come back for the others.’
‘Oui, Monsieur Bonaparte.’
‘You’ll pay for that tonight,’ he threatened her. ‘Off you go.’
Shermaine let out the clutch and the Ford bounced over rough ground to the road, accelerated smoothly out on to the bridge.
Bruce held his breath, but there was only
a slight check and sway as it crossed the repaired section.
‘Thank God for that,’ Bruce let out his breath and watched while Shermaine drew up alongside the shelter.
‘Allez,’ Bruce shouted at the coloured engine driver who was ready at the wheel of the first truck. The man smiled his cheerful chubby-faced smile, waved, and the truck rolled forward.
Watching anxiously as it went on to the bridge, Bruce saw the new timbers give perceptibly beneath the weight of the truck, and he heard them creak loudly in protest.
‘Not so good,’ he muttered.
‘No—’ agreed Ruffy. ‘Boss, why don’t you let someone else take the tanker over?’
‘We’ve been over that already,’ Bruce answered him without turning his head. Across the river Hendry was transferring his men from the shelter to the back of the truck. Then the shelter started its tedious way back towards them.
Bruce fretted impatiently during the four hours that it took to get four trucks across. The long business was the shuttling back and forth of the corrugated iron shelter, at least ten minutes for each trip.
Finally there was only the fifth truck and the tanker left on the north bank. Bruce started the engine of the tanker and put her into auxiliary low, then he blew a single blast on the horn. The driver of the truck ahead of him waved an acknowledgement and pulled forward.
The truck reached the bridge and went out into the middle. It was fully loaded, twenty men aboard. It came to the repaired section and slowed down, almost stopping.
‘Go on! Keep it going, damn you,’ Bruce shouted in impotent anger. The fool of a driver was forgetting his orders. He crawled forward and the bridge gave alarmingly under the full weight, the high canopied roof rocked crazily, and even above the rumble of his own engine Bruce could hear the protesting groan of the bridge timbers.
‘The fool, oh, the bloody fool,’ whispered Bruce to himself. Suddenly he felt very much alone and unprotected here on the north bank with the bridge being mutilated by the incompetence of the truck driver. He started the tanker moving.
Ahead of him the other driver had panicked. He was racing his engine, the rear wheels spun viciously, blue smoke of scorched tyres, and one of the floorboards tore loose. Then the truck lurched forward and roared up the south bank.
Bruce hesitated, applying the brakes and bringing the tanker to a standstill on the threshold of the bridge.
He thought quickly. The sensible thing would be to repair the damage to the bridge before chancing it with the weight of the tanker. But that would mean another day’s delay. None of them had eaten since the previous morning. Was he justified in gambling against even odds, for that’s what they were? A fifty-fifty chance, heads you get across, tails you dump the tanker in the middle of the river.
Then unexpectedly the decision was made for him.
From across the river a Bren gun started firing. Bruce jumped in his seat and looked up. Then a dozen other guns joined in and the tracer flew past the tanker. They were firing across towards him, close on each side of him. Bruce struggled to drag from his uncomprehending brain an explanation of this new development. Suddenly everything was moving too swiftly. Everything was confusion and chaos.
Movement in the rear-view mirror of the tanker caught his eye. He stared at it blankly. Then he twisted quickly in his seat and looked back.
‘Christ!’ he swore with fright.
From the edge of the jungle on both sides of the clearing Baluba were swarming into the open. Hundreds of them running towards him, the animal-skin kilts swirling about their legs, feather headdresses fluttering, sun bright on the long blades of their pangas. An arrow rang dully against the metal body of the tanker.
Bruce revved the engine, gripped the wheel hard with both hands and took the tanker out on to the bridge. Above the sound of the guns he could hear the shrill ululation, the excited squealing of two hundred Baluba. It sounded very close, and he snatched a quick look in the mirror. What he saw nearly made him lose his head and give the tanker full throttle. The nearest Baluba, screened from the guns on the south bank by the tanker’s bulk, was only ten paces away. So close that Bruce could see the tattoo marks on his face and chest.
With an effort Bruce restrained his right foot from pressing down too hard, and instead he bore down on the repaired section of the bridge at a sedate twenty miles an hour. He tried to close his mind to the squealing behind him and the thunder of gunfire ahead of him.
The front wheels hit the new timbers, and above the other sounds he heard them groan loudly, and felt them sag under him.
The tanker rolled on and the rear wheels brought their weight to bear. The groan of wood became a cracking, rending sound. The tanker slowed as the bridge subsided, its wheels spun without purchase, it tilted sideways, no longer moving forward.
A sharp report, as one of the main trusses broke, and Bruce felt the tanker drop sharply at the rear; its nose pointed upwards and it started to slide back.
‘Get out!’ his brain shrieked at him. ‘Get out, it’s falling!’ He reached for the door handle beside him, but at that moment the bridge collapsed completely. The tanker rolled off the edge.
Bruce was hurled across the cab with a force that stunned him, his legs wedged under the passenger seat and his arms tangled in the strap of his rifle. The tanker fell free and Bruce felt his stomach swoop up and press against his chest as though he rode a giant roller coaster.
The sickening drop lasted only an instant, and then the tanker hit the river. Immediately the sounds of gunfire and the screaming of Baluba were drowned out as the tanker disappeared below the surface. Through the windscreen Bruce saw now the cool cloudy green of water, as though he looked into the windows of an aquarium. With a gentle rocking motion the tanker sank down through the green water.
‘Oh, my God, not this!’ He spoke aloud as he struggled up from the floor of the cab. His ears were filled with the hiss and belch of escaping air bubbles; they rose in silver clouds past the windows.
The truck was still sinking, and Bruce felt the pain in his eardrums as the pressure built up inside the cab. He opened his mouth and swallowed convulsively, and his eardrums squeaked as the pressure equalized and the pain abated. Water was squirting in through the floor of the cab and jets of it spurted out of the instrument panel of the dashboard. The cab was flooding.
Bruce twisted the handle of the door beside him and hit it with his shoulder. It would not budge an inch. He flung all his weight against it, anchoring his feet on the dashboard and straining until he felt his eyeballs starting out of their sockets. It was jammed solid by the immense pressure of water on the outside.
‘The windscreen,’ he shouted aloud. ‘Break the windscreen.’ He groped for his rifle. The cab had flooded to his waist as he sat in the passenger’s seat. He found the rifle and brought it dripping to his shoulder. He touched the muzzle to the windscreen and almost fired. But his good sense warned him.
Clearly he saw the danger of firing. The concussion in the confined cab would burst his eardrums, and the avalanche of broken glass that would be thrown into his face by the water pressure outside would certainly blind and maim him.
He lowered the rifle despondently. He felt his panic being slowly replaced by the cold certainty of defeat. He was trapped fifty feet below the surface of the river. There was no way out.
He thought of turning the rifle on himself, ending the inevitable, but he rejected the idea almost as soon as it had formed. Not that way, never that way!
He flogged his mind, driving it out of the cold lethargic clutch of certain death. There must be something. Think! Damn you, think!
The tanker was still rocking; it had not yet settled into the ooze of the river bottom. How long had he been under? About twenty seconds. Surely it should have hit the bottom long ago.
Unless! Bruce felt hope surge into new life within him. The tank! By God, that was it.
The great, almost empty tank behind him! The five-thousand-gallon tank which now contai
ned only four hundred gallons of gasoline – it would have a displacement of nearly eighteen tons! It would float.
As if in confirmation of his hope, he felt his eardrums creak and pop. The pressure was falling! He was rising.
Bruce stared out at green water through the glass. The silver clouds of bubbles no longer streamed upwards; they seemed to hang outside the cab. The tanker had overcome the initial impetus that had driven it far below the surface, and now it was floating upwards at the same rate of ascent as its bubbles.
The dark green of deep water paled slowly to the colour of Chartreuse. And Bruce laughed. It was a gasping hysterical giggle and the sound of it shocked him. He cut it off abruptly.
The tanker bobbed out on to the surface, water streamed from the windscreen and through it Bruce caught a misty distorted glimpse of the south bank.
He twisted the door handle and this time the door burst open readily, water poured into the cab and Bruce floundered out against its rush.
With one quick glance he took in his position. The tanker had floated down twenty yards below the bridge, the guns on the south bank had fallen silent, and he could see no Baluba on the north bank. They must have disappeared back into the jungle.
Bruce plunged into the river and struck out for the south bank. Vaguely he heard the thin high shouts of encouragement from his gendarmes.
Within a dozen strokes he knew he was in difficulties. The drag of his boots and his sodden uniform was enormous. Treading water he tore off his steel helmet and let it sink. Then he tried to struggle out of his battle-jacket. It clung to his arms and chest and he disappeared under the surface four times before he finally got rid of it. He had breathed water into his lungs and his legs were tired and heavy.
The south bank was too far away. He would never make it. Coughing painfully he changed his objective and struck upstream against the current towards the bridge.
He felt himself settling lower in the water; he had to force his arms to lift and fall forward into each stroke.
Something plopped into the water close beside him. He paid no attention to it; suddenly a sense of disinterest had come over him, the first stage of drowning. He mistimed a breath and sucked in more water. The pain of it goaded him into a fresh burst of coughing. He hung in the water, gasping and hacking painfully.
