by Wilbur Smith
Again something plopped close by, and this time he lifted his head. An arrow floated past him – then they began dropping steadily about him.
Baluba hidden in the thick bush above the beach were shooting at him; a gentle pattering rain of arrows splashed around his head. Bruce started swimming again, clawing his way frantically upstream. He swam until he could no longer lift his arms clear of the surface and the weight of his boots dragged his feet down.
Again he lifted his head. The bridge was close, not thirty feet away, but he knew that those thirty feet were as good as thirty miles. He could not make it.
The arrows that fell about him were no longer a source of terror. He thought of them only with mild irritation.
Why the hell can’t they leave me alone? I don’t want to play any more. I just want to relax. I’m so tired, so terribly tired.
He stopped moving and felt the water rise up coolly over his mouth and nose.
‘Hold on, boss. I’m coming.’ The shout penetrated through the grey fog of Bruce’s drowning brain. He kicked and his head rose once more above the surface. He looked up at the bridge.
Stark naked, big belly swinging with each pace, thick legs flying, the great dangling bunch of his genitals bouncing merrily, black as a charging hippopotamus, Sergeant Major Ruffararo galloped out along the bridge.
He reached the fallen section and hauled himself up on to the guard rail. The arrows were falling around him, hissing down like angry insects. One glanced off his shoulder without penetrating and Ruffy shrugged at it, then launched himself up and out, falling in an ungainly heap of arms and legs to hit the water with a splash.
‘Where the hell are you, boss?’
Bruce croaked a water-strangled reply and Ruffy came ploughing down towards him with clumsy overarm strokes.
He reached Bruce.
‘Always playing around,’ he grunted. ‘Guess some guys never learn!’ His fist closed on a handful of Bruce’s hair.
Struggling unavailingly Bruce felt his head tucked firmly under Ruffy’s arm and he was dragged through the water. Occasionally his face came out long enough to suck a breath but mostly he was under water. Consciousness receded and he felt himself going, going.
His head bumped against something hard but he was too weak to reach out his hand.
‘Wake up, boss. You can have a sleep later.’ Ruffy’s voice bellowed in his ear. He opened his eyes and saw beside him the pile of the bridge.
‘Come on. I can’t carry you up here.’
Ruffy had worked round the side of the pile, shielding them from arrows, but the current was strong here, tugging at their bodies. Without the strength to prevent it Bruce’s head rolled sideways and his face flopped forward into the water.
‘Come on, wake up.’ With a stinging slap Ruffy’s open hand hit Bruce across the cheek. The shock roused him, he coughed and a mixture of water and vomit shot up his throat and out of his mouth and nose. Then he blenched painfully and retched again.
‘How’s it feel now?’ Ruffy demanded.
Bruce lifted a hand from the water and wiped his mouth. He felt much better.
‘Okay? Can you make it?’
Bruce nodded.
‘Let’s go then.’
With Ruffy dragging and pushing him, he worked his way up the pile. Water poured from his clothing as his body emerged, his hair was plastered across his forehead and he could feel each breath gurgle in his lungs.
‘Listen boss. When we get to the top we’ll be in the open again. There’ll be more arrows – not time to sit around and chat. We’re going over the rail fast and then run like hell, okay?’
Bruce nodded again. Above him were the floorboards of the bridge. With one hand he reached up and caught an upright of the guard rail, and he hung there without strength to pull himself the rest of the way.
‘Hold it there,’ grunted Ruffy and wriggled his shiny wet bulk up and over.
The arrows started falling again; one pegged into the wood six inches from Bruce’s face and stood there quivering. Slowly Bruce’s grip relaxed. I can’t hold on, he thought, I’m going.
Then Ruffy’s hand closed on his wrist, he felt himself dragged up, his legs dangled. He hung suspended by one arm and the water swirled smoothly past twenty feet below.
Slowly he was drawn upwards, his chest scraped over the guard rail, tearing his shirt, then he tumbled over it into an untidy heap on the bridge.
Vaguely he heard the guns firing on the south bank, the flit and thump of the arrows, and Ruffy’s voice.
‘Come on, boss. Get up.’
He felt himself being lifted and dragged along. With his legs boneless soft under him, he staggered beside Ruffy. Then there were no more arrows; the timbers of the bridge became solid earth under his feet. Voices and hands on him. He was being lifted, then lowered face down on to the wooden floor of a truck. The rhythmic pressure on his chest as someone started artificial respiration above him, the warm gush of water up his throat, and Shermaine’s voice. He could not understand what she was saying, but just the sound of it was enough to make him realize he was safe. Darkly through the fog he became aware that her voice was the most important sound in his life.
He vomited again.
Hesitantly at first, and then swiftly, Bruce came back from the edge of oblivion.
‘That’s enough,’ he mumbled and rolled out from under Sergeant Jacque who was administering the artificial respiration. The movement started a fresh paroxysm of coughing and he felt Shermaine’s hands on his shoulders restraining him.
‘Bruce, you must rest.’
‘No.’ He struggled into a sitting position. ‘We’ve got to get out into the open,’ he gasped.
‘No hurry, boss. We’ve left all the Balubes on the other bank. There’s a river between us.’
‘How do you know?’ Bruce challenged him.
‘Well—’
‘You don’t!’ Bruce told him flatly. ‘There could easily be another few hundred on this side.’ He coughed again painfully and then went on. ‘We’re leaving in five minutes, get them ready.’
‘Okay.’ Ruffy turned to leave.
‘Ruffy!’
‘Boss?’ He turned back expectantly.
‘Thank you.’
Ruffy grinned self-consciously. ‘’At’s all right. I needed a wash anyway.’
‘I’ll buy you a drink when we get home.’
‘I won’t forget,’ Ruffy warned him, and climbed down out of the truck. Bruce heard him shouting to his boys.
‘I thought I’d lost you.’ Shermaine’s arm was still round his shoulders and Bruce looked at her for the first time.
‘My sweet girl, you won’t get rid of me that easily,’ he assured her. He was feeling much better now.
‘Bruce, I want to – I can’t explain—’ Unable to find the words she leaned forward instead and kissed him, full on the mouth.
When they drew apart, Sergeant Jacque and the two gendarmes with him were grinning delightedly. ‘There is nothing wrong with you now, Captain.’ ‘No, there isn’t,’ Bruce agreed. ‘Make your preparations for departure.’
From the passenger seat of the Ford Bruce took one last look at the bridge.
The repaired section hung like a broken drawbridge into the water. Beyond it on the far bank were scattered a few dead Baluba, like celluloid dolls in the sunlight. Far downstream the gasoline tanker had been washed by the current against the beach. It lay on its side, half-submerged in the shallows and the white Shell insignia showed clearly.
And the river flowed on, green and inscrutable, with the jungle pressing close along its banks.
‘Let’s get away from here,’ said Bruce.
Shermaine started the engine and the convoy of trucks followed them along the track through the belt of thick river bush and into the open forest again.
Bruce looked at his watch. The inside of the glass was dewed with moisture and he lifted it to his ear.
‘Damn thing has stopped. What’s yo
ur time?’
‘Twenty minutes to one.’
‘Half the day wasted,’ Bruce grumbled.
‘Will we reach Msapa Junction before dark?’
‘No, we won’t. For two good reasons. Firstly, it’s too far, and secondly, we haven’t enough gas.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Her voice was unruffled, already she had complete faith in him. I wonder how long it will last, he mused cynically. At first you’re a god. You have not a single human weakness. They set a standard for you, and the standard is perfection. Then the first time you fall short of it, their whole world blows up.
‘We’ll think of something,’ he assured her.
‘I’m sure you will,’ she agreed complacently and Bruce grinned. The big joke, of course, was that when she said it he also believed it. Damned if being in love doesn’t make you feel one hell of a man.
He changed to English so as to exclude the two gendarmes in the back seat from the conversation.
‘You are the best thing that has happened to me in thirty years.’
‘Oh, Bruce.’ She turned her face towards him and the expression of trusting love in it and the intensity of his own emotion struck Bruce like a physical blow.
I will keep this thing alive, he vowed. I must nourish it with care and protect it from the dangers of selfishness and familiarity.
‘Oh, Bruce, I do love you so terribly much. This morning when – when I thought I had lost you, when I saw the tanker go over into the river—’ She swallowed and now her eyes were full of tears. ‘It was as though the light had gone – it was so dark, so dark and cold without you.’
Absorbed with him so that she had forgotten about the road, Shermaine let the Ford veer and the offside wheels pumped into the rough verge.
‘Hey, watch it!’ Bruce cautioned her. ‘Dearly as I love you also, I have to admit that you’re a lousy driver. Let me take her.’
‘Do you feel up to it?’
‘Yes, pull into the side.’
Slowly, held to the speed of the lumbering vehicles behind them, they drove on through the afternoon. Twice they passed deserted Baluba villages beside the road, the grass huts disintegrating and the small cultivated lands about them thickly overgrown.
‘My God, I’m hungry. I’ve got a headache from it and my belly feels as though it’s full of warm water,’ complained Bruce.
‘Don’t think you’re the only one. This is the strictest diet I’ve ever been on, must have lost two kilos! But I always lose in the wrong place, never on my bottom.’
‘Good,’ Bruce said. ‘I like it just the way it is, never shed an ounce there.’ He looked over his shoulder at the two gendarmes. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked in French.
‘Mon Dieu!’ exclaimed the fat one. ‘I will not be able to sleep tonight, if I must lie on an empty stomach.’
‘Perhaps it will not be necessary.’ Bruce let his eyes wander off the road into the surrounding bush. The character of the country had changed in the last hundred miles. ‘This looks like game country. I’ve noticed plenty of spoor on the road. Keep your eyes open.’
The trees were tall and widely spaced with grass growing beneath them. Their branches did not interlock so that the sky showed through. At intervals there were open glades filled with green swamp grass and thickets of bamboo and ivory palms.
‘We’ve got another half hour of daylight. We might run into something before then.’
In the rear-view mirror he watched the lumbering column of transports for a moment. They must be almost out of gasoline by now, hardly enough for another half hour’s driving. There were compensations however; at least they were in open country now and only eighty miles from Msapa Junction.
He glanced at the petrol gauge – half the tank. The Ranchero still had sufficient to get through even if the trucks were almost dry.
Of course! That was the answer. Find a good camp, leave the convoy, and go on in the Ford to find help. Without the trucks to slow him down he could get through to Msapa Junction in two hours. There was a telegraph in the station office, even if the junction was still deserted.
‘We’ll stop on the other side of this stream,’ said Bruce and slowed the Ford, changed into second gear and let it idle down the steep bank.
The stream was shallow. The water hardly reached the hubcaps as they bumped across the rocky bottom. Bruce gunned the Ford up the far bank into the forest again.
‘There!’ shouted one of the gendarmes from the back seat and Bruce followed the direction of his arm.
Standing with humped shoulders, close beside the road, bunched together with mournfully drooping horns, heads held low beneath the massive bosses, bodies very big and black, were two old buffalo bulls.
Bruce hit the brakes, skidding the Ranchero to a stop, reaching for his rifle at the same instant. He twisted the door handle, hit the door with his shoulder and tumbled out on to his feet.
With a snort and a toss of their ungainly heads the buffalo started to run.
Bruce picked the leader and aimed for the neck in front of the plunging black shoulder. Leaning forward against the recoil of the rifle he fired and heard the bullet strike with a meaty thump. The bull slowed, breaking his run. The stubby forelegs settled and he slid forward on his nose, rolling as he fell, dust and legs kicking.
Turning smoothly without taking the butt from his shoulder, swinging with the run of the second bull, Bruce fired again, and again the thump of bullet striking.
The buffalo stumbled, giving in the legs, then he steadied and galloped on like a grotesque rocking horse, patches of baldness grey on his flanks, big-bellied, running heavily.
Bruce shifted the bead of the foresight on to his shoulder and fired twice in quick succession, aiming low for the heart, hitting each time, the bull so close he could see the bullet wounds appear on the dark skin.
The gallop broke into a trot, with head swinging low, mouth open, legs beginning to fold. Aiming carefully for the head Bruce fired again. The bull bellowed – a sad lonely sound – and collapsed into the grass.
The lorries had stopped in a line behind the Ford, and now from each of them swarmed black men. Jabbering happily, racing each other, they streamed past Bruce to where the buffalo had fallen in the grass beside the road.
‘Nice shooting, boss,’ applauded Ruffy. ‘I’m going to have me a piece of tripe the size of a blanket.’
‘Let’s make camp first.’ Bruce’s ears were still singing with gunfire. ‘Get the lorries into a ring.’
‘I’ll see to it.’
Bruce walked up to the nearest buffalo and watched for a while as a dozen men strained to roll it on to its back and begin butchering it. There were clusters of grape-blue ticks in the folds of skin between the legs and body.
A good head, he noted mechanically, forty inches at least.
‘Plenty of meat, Captain. Tonight we eat thick!’ grinned one of his gendarmes as he bent over the huge body to begin flensing.
‘Plenty,’ agreed Bruce and turned back to the Ranchero. In the heat of the kill it was a good feeling: the rifle’s kick and your stomach screwed up with excitement. But afterwards you felt a little bit dirtied; sad and guilty as you do after lying with a woman you do not love.
He climbed into the car and Shermaine sat away from him, withdrawn.
‘They were so big and ugly – beautiful,’ she said softly.
‘We needed the meat. I didn’t kill them for fun.’ But he thought with a little shame, I have killed many others for fun.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘We needed the meat.’
He turned the car off the road and signalled to the truck drivers to pull in behind him.
– 27 –
Later it was all right again. The meat-rich smoke from a dozen cooking fires drifted across the camp. The dark tree tops silhouetted against a sky full of stars, the friendly glow of the fires, and laughter, men’s voices raised, someone singing, the night noises of the bush – insects and frogs in the nearby stream – a pl
ate piled high with grilled fillets and slabs of liver, a bottle of beer from Ruffy’s hoard, the air at last cooler, a small breeze to keep the mosquitoes away, and Shermaine sitting beside him on the blankets.
Ruffy drifted across to them, in one hand a stick loaded with meat from which the juice dripped and in the other hand a bottle held by the throat.
‘How’s it for another beer, boss?’
‘Enough.’ Bruce held up his hand. ‘I’m full to the back teeth.’
‘You’re getting old, that’s for sure. Me and the boys going to finish them buffalo or burst trying.’ He squatted on his great haunches and his tone changed. ‘The trucks are flat, boss. Reckon there’s not a bucketful of gas in the lot of them.’
‘I want you to drain all the tanks, Ruffy, and pour it into the Ford.’
Ruffy nodded and bit a hunk of meat off the end of the stick.
‘Then first thing tomorrow morning you and I will go on to Msapa in the Ranchero and leave everyone else here. Lieutenant Hendry will be in charge.’
‘You talking about me?’ Wally came from one of the fires.
‘Yes, I’m going to leave you in charge here while Ruffy and I go on to Msapa Junction to fetch help.’ Bruce did not look at Hendry and he had difficulty keeping the loathing out of his voice. ‘Ruffy, fetch the map will you?’
They spread it on the earth and huddled round it. Ruffy held the flashlight.
‘I’d say we are about here.’ Bruce touched the tiny black vein of the road. ‘About seventy, eighty miles to Msapa.’ He ran his finger along it. ‘It will take us about five hours there and back. However, if the telegraph isn’t working we might have to go on until we meet a patrol or find some other way of getting a message back to Elisabethville.’
Almost parallel to the road and only two inches from it on the large-scale map ran the thick red line that marked the Northern Rhodesian border. Wally Hendry’s slitty eyes narrowed even further as he looked at it.
