Текст книги "A Time to Die"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

He counted his shuffling crablike paces along the ledge, and by the time he reached a hundred the ledge under his toes had narrowed dangerously and the muscles in his thighs were burning and qwv ering from the unnatural strain of counterbalancing the rifle and pack.

Twenty paces more and the cliff face was beginning to bulge out toward him, forcing him further backward. He had to thrust his hips forward to keep himself from toppling out over the sheer drop. It was only a hundred feet to the bottom, but it would crush and kill just as surely as a fall from the top of Eiger north face.

The strain on his legs was intolerable now. He thought of going back and trying the roots of the ficus, but he doubted he still had that choice. He wanted to stop, just to rest his legs a moment and gather himself, but he knew that would be the end of it. To stop on a pitch like this was defeat and certain death.

He made himself take another pace and then another. Now he was forced backward so his back was arched and his legs were numb to the ankles; he could feel them juddering under him, knew they were going. Then suddenly the fingers of his left hand touched the crack, and it was as though a syringeful of adrenaline had been squirted into one of his arteries.

His legs steadied under him, and he managed another pace. His fingers danced over the crack, exploring it swiftly. It was not wide enough to get his shoulder into it, and it narrowed quickly.

Sean thrust his hand into it as deep as it would go, then bunched his fist, jamming it securely into the crack. Now he could hang back on his arm and rest his back and his aching legs. His breathing hissed and sawed in his chest and the sweat was streaming down his body, soaking his shirt. Sweat melted the camouflage cream from his face and burned his eyes, blurring his vision.

He blinked rapidly and lifted his head. He was surprised to see that the cliff face above him was visible against the night sky and that he could make out the crack running vertically up its side.

He turned his head and saw that while he had been climbing the moon had cleared the horizon in the east. Its beams had turned the forest below to a frosty silver.

He could not wait any longer. He had to keep moving. He reached up with his free hand, thrust it into the rock crack above the other, and made another jam-hold. Then he twisted his foot and pressed the toe into the crack three feet up from the ledge; b( straightened his foot and it wedged securely. He put his weight on it and, with the other foot, stepped up and repeated the action.

Hand over hand, foot over foot, he walked up the crack, hanging back from the rock face, once more in balance, the strain removed from his legs and back and his weight evenly distributed.

He could see the top of the cliff now, only a hundred feet above his head. Then he felt the crack begin to open wider; his fists and feet were no longer finding secure jams. One of his feet slipped under him, rasping harshly over the rock until it caught again.

He turned his body, trying to wedge his shoulder into the crack, but the barrel of the rifle clanged against the face, blocking his turn. He hung there for a few seconds before he could force himself back into balance on his legs and then groped above his head, searching the depth of the crack for another secure hold. He found only smooth sandstone, and he knew he was stuck.

He had about fifteen seconds before his legs gave way under him. He understood clearly what he had to do, but it went contrary to all his instincts.

"Do it," his voice grated in his own ears. "Do it or die."

He reached down and opened the quick-release buckle on the waistband of his backpack. Then he straightened one arm and reached backward and downward; the carrying strap slid off his shoulder and down his arm, catching in the crook of his elbow.

The altered weight of the pack and the rifle slewed his whole body around, and he had to fight to stay on the cliff face.

He thrust his head into the crack, trying to hook onto the rock with his chin and the back of his head, the strap of the backpack locking his arm behind him. His head jammed in the crack, he gathered all his strength, braced his neck muscles, and let go. Now he was held only by his head and feet, and he straightened both arms behind him. For an aching moment the strap caught on a fold of his bush jacket, thevlt slipped down over his arm.

The pack dropped4 off his back and fell away into the darkness.

Relieved of the weight, Sean tottered and swayed. Then, with both arms free, he grabbed wildly at the edges of the rock crack and managed to keep himself from plunging after his pack into the abyss.

He clung to the rock and listened to the pack striking the cliff as it fell, the steel of his rifle barrel ringing like a bronze bell off the rock, waking the echoes and sending them bounding from kopJe to cliff, a terrifing sound in the night. Long after the pack and rifle had come to rest at the base of the Cliff, the echoes still reverberated against the hills.

Sean swung himself sideways and was able at last to wedge his shoulder into the crack. He rested like that, panting wildly, the terror of death for the moment unnerving him. Then slowly his breathing eased and his terror was replaced by the familiar glow of adrenaline in his blood. Suddenly it felt very good still to be alive.

"Right to the very edge," he whispered hoarsely. "You have been there again, boyo." The greater the terror, the more intense the thrill. He no longer amazed himself, but here he was again gloating at just how close he could get without going over the edge.

The thrill was too fleeting. Within seconds it began to fade, replaced by a realization of his position. His pack was gone. The rifle, water bottles, sleeping bag, food, all gone, All that remained were the contents of his pockets and the tiny emergency pack and hunting knife looped to his belt.

He whispered, "We'll worry about that when we get to the top."

He began to climb again. With one shoulder wedged into the crack, he was able to push and drag himself upward an inch at a time, paying for it with skin from his knuckles and bare knees.

Gradually the crack continued to open wider, until it became a full chimney and he could get his whole body into it and double one leg under him to propel himself upward more swiftly At the op the chimney had eroded and crumbled. One side wall of the chimney had broken away, but it had left a narrow buttress with a flat top. Sean was able to transfer his weight across the chimney utntil he was standing on this precarious pinnacle.

The top of the cliff was still ten feet above his head. When he reached up to the full stretch of his arms, standing on the tips of Ms toes, the ledge was stiff just out of reach. The chimney wall had broken away clearly, leaving a smooth, almost polished surface without even the minutest hold or purchase. A good, safe climber moved from hold to hold with never a single moment when he was totally insecure. In a situation such as this that hypothetical climber would have driven an iron piton into the rock to give him the hold he needed.

"Look, Mummy, no pitons," Sean said grimly. "We'll have to jump for it." He would have only one chance at it. If he missed his hold on the ledge once he had launched himself, the next stop would be the base of the cliff.

He set both feet firmly and sank down at the knees, but he was so cramped on the tip of the buttress that he could not get low enough before his face touched the rock and his backside stuck far out over the drop. He took a breath and used both arms and legs to propel himself straight upward. It was an awkward, hampered jump, but he got high enough to hook both hands over the edge.

For a moment they began to slide back, then his fingers gripped and held.

He kicked both legs and drew himself upward by the main strength of his arms. His chin came level with the ledge, and in the moonlight he saw in front of him a false crest, simply another ledge below the true top of the cliff.

The ledge was obviously occupied by a colony of rock hyrax.

The stink of their droppings, sharp and ammoniac al filled Sean's lungs as he gasped from the effort of holding himself. The hyrax is a plump, fluffy animal. Although it is only the size of a rabbit, it is a remote relative of the elephant and as endearing in appearance as an infant's soft toy. These hyrax were deep in their rocky burrows now, and the ledge seemed deserted. Sean hoisted himself up smoothly and hooked one elbow over the edge; he kicked again, gathering himself for the final effort. Then he froze.

The silence of the night was cut by a loud high-pitched hiss, like the leaking valve of a truck tire. In the moonlight what he had taken for a pile of rock lying directly in front of his face altered shape, seeming to melt and flow. In an instant Sean realized it was a snake. Only one of the adders would hiss as loudly, and only one adder was that large.

It was coiled upon itself, loop after loop of its thick scaly body glistening softly, and as it cocked its neck into a menacing "S" the moon and winked at him shape, its eye caught the light of sardonically.

The huge flat head was the distinctive spade shape of the ga boon adder, the largest of all the adders and one of the deadliest of all of Africa's venomous snakes.

Sean could drop back and try to regain his stance on the narrow pinnacle of rock, but that was a slim chance and if he missed it, he e ul would plunge down the cliff face. A much better chanc would be to try and brave it out.

He hung with legs free, trying to control his breathing, staring in horror at the loathgbme creature– It was cocked to strike less than two feet from 4is face, and he knew it could lunge out almost its full body length," seven feet or more The slightest movement would trigger it.

He hung on his arms, every muscle of his body rigid, staring at the adder, trying to dominate it by the force of his will. The seconds drew out as slowly as spilled molasses, and he thought he detected the first relaxation in the taut "S" of its neck.

At that moment his left hand slipped, his fingernails rasped on the rock, and the adder struck with the force Of a blacksmith's hammer.

Sean rolled his head to the side like a boxer avoiding a punch.

The adder's cold, scaly nose jarred against his jawbone and there was a fierce tug against his neck and shoulder, so powerful it jerked one hand loose from its hold on the rock and spun him half around. He was sideways to the ledge, holding on with only his left arm.

He knew the adder had hooked its fangs into his shoulder or the side of his throat, and he expected the exquisite fire of its venom to kindle in his flesh. The serpent was locked onto him, dangling down the front of his body, thick as a salami sausage; it squirmed and thrashed, hissing explosively in his ear. The cold touch of its slippery scales brushed against his bare flesh.

Sean almost screamed with the sheer horror of it. The adder's weight threw him about as it lashed from side to side, and its loud hisses deafened him. He felt his single-handed grip on the ledge slipping, but the prospect of the drop below him was suddenly insignificant when compared to this foul creature fastened to his neck.

He felt an icy spray of liquid on the side of his throat and his jaw; it dribbled down the opening of his bush jacket, and with a rush of relief he knew the adder had missed his throat and fastened onto the collar of his jacket. Its fangs were fully two inches long and viciously curved, designed to penetrate and hang on to its prey.

Hooked into the khaki cotton material of his collar, its violent struggles were forcing the venom out of the hollow bony needles, and it was squirting onto his throat and bare skin.

The realization that the fangs had not penetrated his flesh rallied him, firmed his grip on the ledge, and arrested his slow slide into the drop. His right hand was still free. He reached up and seized the adder's neck just at the back of its flat diamond-shaped head.

Ms fingers could barely span the massive body, and he felt the enormous power of its muscles beneath the glassy scales.

He tried to pull it free, but the fangs were like fishhooks in the heavy cloth. The serpent hissed more viciously, and its grotesque body, patterned like a patchwork quilt, coiled around his forearm.

Holding on to the ledge with his left arm, heaving at the adder with his right, and using all his strength, he tore the fangs from the roof of its gaping mouth so that its dark blood mingled with the copious flow of its venom, and flung the twisting coiling body far out over the drop. Then he swung back and grabbed with his right hand at the rock of the ledge.

He was sobbing softly with horror and exertion, and it was fully half a minute before he could gather himself sufficiently to pull himself up and crawl onto the ledge.

He knelt on the rock floor and shrugged out of his bush jacket.

The front of it was wet with venom , and one of the adder's broken off fangs was still buried in the cloth of the collar. He worked it loose and, careful to avoid the needle point, flicked it out over the cliff. Then with his handkerchief he wiped his skin dry.

He considered the danger of wearing the jacket again. The venom might be absorbed through the pores of the sensitive skin under his jaw, it could cause ulcers or worse, but to discard the jacket would expose his body to tomorrow's tropical sun. He hesitated, then rolled the jacket and fastened it onto his belt. He would wash it out at the first opportunity.

The thought of water made him aware of his thirst. The climb was with his pack at the had dehydrated him, and his water bottle bottom of the cliff. He had to find water before tomorrow noon, but now his first concern must be to get off the exposed face of the cliff and into cover.

He stood up and felt the night breeze cold on the sweat of his bare upper body. From the ledge on which he stood it was an easy pitch to the crest, more a scramble than a climb. However, he took it carefully, and when he reached the top he lay for a few minutes with just his head peering over the crest.

A haze of light cloud had veiled the moon, and he could see very little. The bush that grew so densely up the sides of the valley had spread across the tops of the cliff and formed a dark wall just ahead. There were probably forty yards of rocky ground, open except for coarse knee-high grass, and then he would be into the cover of the bush.

He rose to his feet and ran forward, crouching as low as possible as he crossed the skyline. He was halfway to the edge of the bush when the light hit him.

It stopped him dead as though he had run into the rock cliff.

Instinctively he flung up his hands to protect his eyes, for his vision had been shattered and. staffed by the brilliance of the light beamed full into his face. Then he flung himself face forward into the grass and flat tepee his body against the stony earth.

The beam of light threw long black shadows behind each boulder and cast a bright, reflective glow from the pale winter grass.

Sean dared not raise his head. He pressed his face to the earth, exposed, vulnerable, and helpless in that fierce white beam He waited for something to happen, but the silence was unbroken. Even the usual night sounds of nocturnal birds and insects were quenched, so that when at last the voice boomed out of the trees, magnified and distorted by an electronic bullhorn, it was as shocking as a blow in the face.

"Good evening, Colonel Courtney.it was spoken in good English, barely touched by an African accent. "You made excellent time. Twenty-seven minutes fifteen seconds from the base of the cliff to the top."

Sean did not move. He lay and absorbed the bitter humiliation of it. They had been toying with him.

"But I cannot give you high marks for stealth. What was it you threw down the rock? It sounded like a bunch of old tin pots." The speaker chuckled derisively and then went on. "And now, Colonel, if you are sufficiently rested, would you be gracious enough to stand up and raise both hands above your head?"

Sean did not move.

"I beg of you, sir. Don't waste your time and mine."

Sean lay still, wildly considering the possibility of dashing back over the crest behind him.

"Very well, I see you have to be convinced," There was a brief pause, and Sean heard a soft order given in dialect.

The burst of automatic fire tore into the earth three paces from where he lay. He saw the fiery blur of the muzzle flashes among the dark trees and heard the distinctive rush of the RPD light machine gun, like a strip of heavy-duty canvas being ripped. The stream of bullets scythed the grass and raised a mist of yellow dust in the bright light.

Sean came slowly to his feet. The beam of light fastened on his face, but he refused to turn his head away or shield his eyes.

"Hands at full stretch above the head please, Colonel."

He obeyed. His naked upper body was very white in the light.

"I am delighted to see you have kept yourself in good shape, Colonel."

Two dark figures detached themselves from the tree line. Keeping well clear of the light beam, they circled out on either side of him and came up at Sean's rear. From the corner of his eyes, Sean saw that they wore tiger-striped battle dress and their AK rifles were aimed at him. He ignored them until suddenly the steel butt plate of one of the rifles crashed into his spine between the shoulder blades and he fell to his knees.

The voice on the bullhorn gave a sharp order in dialect to prevent them striking him again, and they closed on either side of him and forced him to his feet. One of them searched him swiftly, stripping him of his knife, belt, and emergency pack and patting his pockets. Then they backed off, leaving him naked except for his khaki shorts and velskoen but keeping their AKs aimed at his belly.

The light bobbed as the man carrying it advanced out of the w all of bush. Sean saw it was one of those portable battle lights powered by a heavy rechargeable battery pack the man carried on his back. Slightly behind him, keeping back in the shadow, Came the man with the bullhorn.

Even through the dazzling beam of the battle light Sean saw he was tall and lean, and that he moved with a catlike grace.

"It's been a long time, Colonel Courtney." He was close enough now not to have to use the bullhorn, and Sean recognized his voice.

"Many years," Sean agreed.

"You'll have to speak up." The man stopped a few paces in front of Sean and jokingly cupped one hand to the side of his head.

"I am deaf in one ear, you know," he said. Sean grinned sardonically at him through his black camouflage cream.

"I should have done a better job and blown your other ear out while I was about it, Comrade China."

"Yes," China agreed. "We really must discuss old times together."

He smiled, and he was even more handsome than Sean remembered, relaxed, charming, and debonair. "However, I'm afraid you have delayed me a little, Colonel. Pleasant though it is to renew acquaintance, I cannot afford more time away from my headquarters. There will be an opportunity to talk later, but now I must leave you. My men will take good care of you."

He turned and disappeared into the darkness beyond the beam of light. Sean wanted to call after him, "My men, the girl, are they safe?" but restrained himself. With a man like this it was best to show no weakness, to give him nothing he could use to his advantage later. Sean forced himself to remain silent when the guards urged him forward with practiced use of their gun butts.

We'll join the main column soon, Sean comforted himself. And I'll see for myself how Claudia and Job are doing.

The thought of Claudia was a refreshing draft that he craved even more than sweet cool water.

There were ten men in his guard detail under the co o a sergeant.

d lean as the Obviously they were picked troops, Powerful an pack of wolves of his nightmare. Soon they intercepted a well to a beaten footpath. They closed up around him and urged him jog trot, heading southward into the night.

None of his captors spoke. It was an eerie experience, just the sound of their light footfalls and quick shallow breathing, the creak of equipment and the hot feral smell of their bodies close around him in the night.

After an hour the sergeant signaled a pause, and they stopped beside the track. Sean reached across to the nearest guerrilla and tapped the water bottle on his belt.

The man spoke to the sergeant, the first words since they had started, and Sean understood him. He was speaking Shangane.

The Shanganes were the remnants of one of the tiny Zulu tribes that had been defeated by King Chaka's imp is at the battle of Mhlatuze River in 1818. Unlike so many of the other lesser chieftains, Soshangane had resisted incorporation into Chaka's empire and fled northward with his shattered imp is to found his own kingdom along the borders of present-day Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

So the Shangane language was Zulu-based. Over the years many of Sean's camp staff had been Shangane for, like their Zulu ancestors, they were a fine and noble people. Sean spoke their language fluently, for it contained many similarities to Sindebele.

He did not, however, make the mistake of letting his captors know this and gave no indication of having understood as the trooper said, "The mabunu wants to drink."

"Give it to him," the sergeant replied. "You know the ink osi wants him alive."

The man handed Sean the bottle, and though the water was brackish and tainted by swamp mud, to Sean it tasted like chilled Veuve Chcquot served in a crystal glass.

"The ink osi wants him alive," the sergeant had said. Sean pondered this as he handed the bottle back. The ink osi or chief, was obviously Comrade China, and they had orders to care for him.

That gave him a little comfort, but he did not have long to savor it. After only a few minutes, the sergeant gave the order and they resumed that mile-eating jog trot toward the south.

They ran up the dawn. At any moment Sean expected them to overhaul the main column that was holding Claudia and Job captive, but mile succeeded mile without any sign of them. Now that it was light, Sean could look for the tracks of the column on the footpath ahead, but there were none. They must have taken a different route.

The sergeant in charge was a veteran. He had flankers out sweeping the verges of the footpath ahead for an ambush by Frelimo, but what seemed to concern him more than attack from the forest was the menace from the sky. At all times they attempted to keep under the canopy of the forest, and whenever they were forced to cross open ground they stopped and searched the sky, listened for the sound of engines before venturing out, then crossed to the next line of trees at a full run.

Once during the first morning they heard the sound of a turboprop engine, faint and very far off, but instantly the sergeant gave an order and they all dived into cover. A trooper lay on each side V

of Sean and forced him to keep his head down and his face to the ground until the last murmur of the aircraft engine faded.

This preoccupation with aerial attack puzzled Sean; all he had heard and read indicated that Frelimo's air force was so weak and scattered as to be almost nonexistent. The types of aircraft they possessed were obsolete and unsuited to ground attack, and a shortage of skilled technicians and spares only compounded their ineffectuality.

These men, however, were taking the threat very seriously indeed.

At midday the sergeant ordered a halt. One of the troopers prepared food on a small fire, which he doused as soon as it was cooked. They moved on a few miles before stopping once more to eat the meal. Sean was given an equal share. The maize meal was cooked stiff and fluffy and was well salted, but the meat was rancid and on the point of putrefying. In the average white man it would have caused an immediate attack of enteritis, but Sean's stomach was as conditioned as any African's. He ate it without relish, but without trepidation either.

"The food is good," the sergeant told Sean in Shangane as he sat beside him. "Do you want more?" Sean made a pantomime of incomprehension and said in English, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you are saying." The sergeant shrugged and went on eating.

A few minutes later he turned back to Sean and said sharply, "Look behind you, there's a snake!" Sean resisted the natural impulse to jump to his feet. Instead he grinned ingratiatingly and repeated, "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

The sergeant relaxed, and one of his men remarked. "He does not understand Shangane. It is all right to speak in front of him."

They ignored him for the remainder of the meal and chatted among themselves, but as soon as they had finished the sergeant produced a pair of light manacles from his pack and locked one side on to Sean's wrist and the other onto his own. He delegated sentry duty to two of his men, and the rest of them settled down to sleep. Despite Sean's'exhaustion-he had been going for days now on only brief snatches of sleep-he lay awake and pondered all he had learned and the missing pieces of the puzzle. He was still not certain that he was in Renamo hands; he had only Claudia's brief note to suggest that. Comrade China had been a commissar in Robert Mugabe's Marxist ZANLA army, but Renamo was a rabidly anticommunist organization committed to the overthrow of the Marxist Frefimo government. It didn't add up correctly.

Furthermore, China had fought the Rhodesian army of Ian Smith. What was he doing here across the border, involved in another struggle in a foreign country? Was China a soldier of fortune, a turncoat, or an independent warlord taking advantage f the Mozambican chaos for his own private ends? It would be interesting to find out.

With all this to think about, his last thought before sleep finally overcame him was of Claudia Monterro. If China wanted him alive, it was highly probable that he wanted the girl alive as well.

With that thought, he fell into a deep, dark sleep with a faint smile on his lips.

He woke to the ache of abused muscles and the bruises left by gun butts, but the sergeant had him up and running immediately southward again into the cool shades of evening. Within a mile his muscles warmed and the stiffness evaporated. He settled into the run, matching his escorts easily. Always he looked ahead, hoping at any moment to see the tail of the main column emerge from the darkness ahead, and to see Job and Dedan carrying Claudia's litter.

They ran through the night, and when they stopped again to eat, his captors began to discuss him through their mouthfuls of maize and high-smelling meat.

"They say in the other war he was a lion, an eater of men," the sergeant told them. "It was he that led the attack at Inhlozane, the training camp at the Hills of the Maiden's Breasts."

The troopers looked at him with interest and dawning respect.

"They say that it was veritably he, in person, who destroyed one ear of General China."

They chuckled and shook their heads; that was a fine joke.

"He has the body of a warrior," said one of them, and they considered him frankly, discussing his physique as though he were an in ammate object.

"Why has General China ordered this?" another asked. The sergeant grinned and picked a shred of meat from his back teeth with a fingernail.

"We must run the pride and anger out of him," he grinned.

"General China wants us to change him from a lion into a dog who will wag his tail and do his bidding."

"He has the body of a warrior," the first man repeated. "Now we must discover if he has the heart of a warrior." And they all laughed again.

"So it's a contest, then." Sean kept his face impassive. "All right, you bastards, let's see which dog wags its tail first."

In a perverse fashion Sean began to enjoy himself The challenge was much to his taste. There were ten of them, all in their twenties.

He was just over forty years of age, but that handicap made it even sweeter and helped him to endure the monotony and hardship of the days that followed.

He was careful not to let them know that he understood it was a contest. He knew it would be dangerous to antagonize or humiliate them. Their goodwill and respect would be more valuable than their hatred and resentment.

Sean had spent his entire adult life in the close company of black men. He knew them as servants and as equals, as hunters and as soldiers, as good and loyal friends and as bitter cruel enemies. He knew their strengths and weaknesses and how to exploit them. He understood their tribal customs and their social etiquette, he knew how to flatter and please and impress them, how to gain their respect and make himself agreeable to them.

He showed them just the right degree of respect, but not enough to make them contemptuous. He took special care not to challenge the sergeant's authority or force him to lose face in front of his men. He made the most of their sense of humor and fun. With sign language and a little clowning he made them laugh, and once they had laughed with him their relationship altered subtly. He became more a companion than a captive, and they no longer used the steel-edged gun butts as instruments of casual persuasion. Most important, he every day was picking up little snippets of information.

Twice they passed burned-out villages. The cultivated lands around them had gone back to weeds, the black ashes blowing in the wind.

Sean pointed at the ruins. "Renamo?" he asked.

His captors were outraged. "Not Not" the sergeant told him.

"Frehmo! Frehmo!" He tapped his own chest. "Me Renamo," he boasted, then pointed at his men. "Renamo! Renamo!"

"Renarno!" they agreed proudly.

"Well, that settles that." Sean laughed. "Frelimo. Bang! Bang!"

He made the gestqire of shooting a Frelimo and they were delighted, joining'in the pantomime of slaughter enthusiastically.