Текст книги "A Time to Die"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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Their attitude toward him improved even further, and at their next meal the sergeant handed him an extra-large cut of rotten meat.

While he ate it, they openly discussed his performance to date, agreeing that he was acquitting himself admirably.

"But," the sergeant asked, "he can run and we know he can kill men, but can he kill a hen shaw

Henshaw was the Shangane word for a falcon. Sean had heard them use it many times over the last five days of their trek. Each time they had said the word, they had looked up at the sky with a troubled expression. Now once again at the mention of that bird, they looked unhappy and reflexively glanced upward, "General China thinks so," the sergeant went on. "But who knows, who knows?"

By now Sean was confident that his position was fairly secure.

His relationship with the band would allow him to take the first liberty and force a resolution of this trial by attrition.

On the next stage he began to force the pace. Instead of keeping his station in the file of trotting men two paces behind the Shangane sergeant who led the column, he closed up until he was running on his heels, not quite touching him with each stride, exaggerating his breathing so the sergeant could feel it on the back of his thick sweaty back. Instinctively the sergeant lengthened his own stride and Sean matched him, keeping close, too close, and pushing him.

The sergeant glanced over his shoulder irritably. Sean grinned at him, breathing into his face. The sergeant's eyes narrowed slightly as he realized what was happening. Then he grinned back at Sean and extended his stride into a full run.

"That's it, my friend," Sean said in English. "Now let's see whose tail wags."

The rest of the column had fallen behind. The sergeant called a sharp order to close up, and they went away at a killing pace.

Within an hour there were only three of them left, the others straggled back over a mile of the forest floor. Ahead of them the path climbed a steep incline to the crest of another tableland.

Sean moved up slightly until he was running shou to shoulder with the tall sergeant, but when he tried to pull ahead the man kept up with him. The hillside was so steep that the path went up it in a series of hairpins. The sergeant forged ahead of Sean at the first bend, but Sean caught him and passed him on the straight.

They ran at the top of their speed now, the lead changing back and forth between them, and the third man dropped out before they were halfway up the hillside. They ran grimly in a wash of sweat, their breathing harsh as the exhaust of a steam engine.

Suddenly Sean darted off the path, scrambling straight upward, cutting across the bend and coming out fifty feet ahead of the Shangane. The sergeant shouted angrily at this ruse and cut the next bend himself. Now both of them abandoned the pathway and ran straight up the steep slope, jumping over boulders and roots like a pair of blue kudu bulls in flight.

Sean came out on the crest three feet in front of the sergeant, threw himself down on the hard earth, and rolled onto his back, moaning for breath. The sergeant dropped down beside him with his breath sobbing in his chest. After a minute Sean sat up uncertainly, and they stared at each other in awe.

Then Sean began to laugh. It was a harsh painful cackle, but after a few seconds the Shangane laughed with him, though clearly each gust of laughter was an agony. Their laughter grew stronger as their lungs regained function, and when the rest of the party struggled to the crest of the hill they found them still sitting in the grass beside the track, roaring at each other like a pair of lunatics.

When the march resumed an hour later, the sergeant left the endless footpath and struck off cross-country toward the west. At last there was direction and purpose in the way he led the column.

Sean realized the trial was over.

Before dark they ran into a Renamo fine of permanent defenses.

They were entrenched along the bank of a wide but sluggish river that flowed green between sandbars and around water polished boulders. The dugouts and trenches were reverted with logs and sandbags and meticulously camouflaged against aerial discovery. There were mortars and heavy machine guns dug in, with commanding fields of fire across the river and sweeping the northern bank.

Sean had the impression these fortifications were extensive, and he guessed this was the perimeter of a large military area, certainly battalion and possibly even division strength. Once they had crossed the river and been passed through the defenses, Sean's appearance in the ranks of his escort created a stir of interest.

Off-duty troopers turned out of their dugouts and crowded around them, and his captors clearly enjoyed the elevated status a white prisoner bestowed upon them.

The crowd of interested and jocular onlookers abruptly thinned and parted as a tubby, bespectacled officer strode through them.

Sean's escort saluted him with theatrical flourishes, which he returned by touching the Min of his maroon beret with the tip of his swagger stick.

"Colonel Courtney," he greeted Sean in passable English. "We have been warned to expect you."

For Sean, it was refreshing to notice that Renamo wore conventional badges of rank, based on the Portuguese army conventions.

This man had red field officer flashes and the single crowns of a major on his epaulettes. During the bush war the tells had eschewed the capitalist imperialist traditions and dispensed with the symbols of an elitist officer class.

"You will spend the night with us," the major told him. "And I look forward to having you as our guest in mess tonight."

This was extraordinary treatment, and even Sean's captors were unpressed and in a strange way rather proud of him. The sergeant himself escorted Sean down to the river and even produced a fragment of green soap for him to wash out his bush jacket and shorts.

While they dried on a sun-heated rock, Sean wallowed naked in the pool and then used the last of the soap to wash his hair and rid his face of camouflage cream and ingrained dirt. He had not shaved since he had left Chiwewe camp almost two weeks previously, and his beard felt thick and substantial.

He worked up a lather of suds in his armpits and crotch and looked down at his body. There was not a vestige of fat on him; each individual muscle was outlined clearly beneath the sun darkened skin. He had not been in this extreme condition since the closing days of the war. He was like a thoroughbred racehorse brought up to its peak by a skillful trainer on the eve of a major race.

The sergeant loaned him a steel comb and he brushed his hair out. It fell almost to his shoulders, thick and wavy and sparkling from the wash. He put on his damp clothes and let them dry on his body. He felt good, that charged restless feeling of being at the very pinnacle of physical fitness.

The officers" mess was an underground dugout devoid of ornament or decoration. The furniture was crude and hand-hewn. Ms hosts were the major, a captain, and two young subalterns.

The food made up for its lack of artistic presentation by its abundance. A huge steaming bowl of stew made with sun-dried fish and chilis, the fiery peri-peri that was a relic of the Portuguese onialists, and great mounds of the ubiquitous maize-meal porcol ridge.

It was the best meal Sean had eaten since leaving Chiwewe, but the highlight of the evening was the drink the major provided, unlimited quantities of real civilized beer in metal cans. The labels read "Castle Lager" and in small print at the bottom, "Verwaardig in Suid Afrika, Made in South Africa." It was an indication as to which country was Renaino's good friend.

As the guest in mess, Sean proposed the first toast. He stood and raised his beer can.

"Renamo," he said. "And the people of Mozambique."

The major replied, "President Botha, and the people of South Africa," which settled it conclusively. They knew Sean was from the south and was, therefore, an honored guest.

He felt so secure in their company that he could relax and for the first time in months allow himself to get moderately drunk.

The major had fought for the Rhodesians during the bush war.

He told Sean that like Job Bhekani he had been a subaltern in the Rhodesian African Rifles, the elite black regiment that had fought so effectively and inflicted such slaughter among the ZANLA guerrillas. They soon established the camaraderie of old brothers-in arms Without obviously pumping him, Sean was able to nudge the conversation along and pick up the crumbs of information the major let fall more freely as the cans of beer were consumed.

Sean's estimation had been correct. This was part of the northern perimeter of a Renamo army group. The fortifications were deep and dispersed as a precaution against aerial bombardment.

From this base they marauded southward, hitting the Frelimo garrisons and strafing and raiding the railway line between Beira on the coast and Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.

While they were still working on the first case of beer, Sean and the major discussed with seriousness the significance of that rail link. Zimbabwe was a completely landlocked nation. Its only arteries to the outside world were the two railway lines. The major one was southward into South Africa, via Johannesburg to the major ports of Durban and Cape Town.

Mugabe's Marxist government bitterly resented being reliant on the nation which, for them, epitomized all that was evil in Africa, the bastion of capitalism and the free-market system, the nation that for the eleven long years of the bush war had propped up the white regime of Ian Smith. Mugabe's hysterical rhetoric against his southern neighbor was incessant, and yet the foul hand of apartheid was curled around his jugular vein. His instinct was to look eastward into Mozambique for salvation. During his struggle for independence Mugabe had been ably assisted by the Frelimo president of Mozambique, Samara Machel, whose own struggle against the Portuguese had only just culminated in freedom from the colonial yoke.

Frelimo, his brother",4arxists, had provided Mugabe with recruits, arms, and rut support for his guerrillas. Without reservation they had offered him the use of bases within their territory from which to launch his attacks on Rhodesia. It was only natural now that he had once more turned to Mozambique to provide an escape from this awful humiliation of being seen by the rest of Africa, by his brothers in the Organization of African Unity, to be dealing with the monster of the south, and not only dealing with it but totally dependent on it for every liter of gasoline, every ounce of the daily stuff of survival.

The railway line to the port of Beira on the Mozambique Channel was the natural solution to his predicament. Of course, the port facilities and the main-line system had been allowed to fall into almost total disrepair under African socialist management. The solution to that was simple and well tried: massive aid from the developed nations of the West. As every good African Marxist knew, they were fully entitled to this, and any attempt to withhold it could be countered by the equally simple and well-tried expedient of dubbing it blatant racism. That dread accusation would force immediate compliance. The estimate of the cost of work needed to restore the port and main line to full efficiency was four billion American dollars. However, as actual costs in Africa usu ay exceeded estimates by a hundred percent, the sum of eight billion dollars was more realistic. A mere bagatelle, nothing more than their due, a fair price for the West to pay for the pleasure and prestige Mugabe would derive from being able to thumb his nose at the monster of the south.

There was only one small obstacle in his way, the Renanio army.

It sat astride that vital rail fink, attacking it almost daily, blowing up bridges and culverts, ripping out the tracks and shooting up rolling stock.

The actual damage they caused was minor compared to the fact that their depredations gave the Western governments a fine excuse to withhold the funds needed to restore the main line to the condition in which it would be able to carry all of Zimbabwe's imports and exports.

The Frelimo government's efforts to protect the line were so fumbling and inept that the Zimbabweans themselves were forced to assist them. Over ten thousand of M s own troops were tied up with trying to fend off Renamo attacks on the line. Sean had heard estimates of the cost of these operations to Zimbabwe's economy, already one of the shakiest in sub-Saharan Africa, as high as a million dollars a day.

It was ironic that Mugabe, once the guerrilla, was now forced into the role of passive defender of fixed hardware and permanent positions.

He was experiencing the stings of the flea that he had once so merrily dispensed.

Sean and the Renamo major laughed at the joke and began on the second case of good apartheid lager. This marked the passing of the time for serious conversation.

Now they reminisced happily about the days of the bush war and soon discovered that they had both been at the same contact in the Mavuradonha Mountains on the day when they had killed forty-six guerrillas, a "good kill" as a successful action was always referred to. Sean's Scouts had lain in wait in the gulleys and reentrances to the hills, acting in the role of stop group, while the Pa RAR had dropped on the far side by parachute and formed the sweep line to drive the terrorists onto the Scouts.

"You drove out as many bushbuck as gooks," Sean remembered. "I didn't know which to shoot first." And they laughed and talked of other dangerous sorties, of crazy ops and wild chases and "good kills."

They drank to Ian Smith, the Banantyne scouts, and the Rhodesian African Rifles. There was still plenty of beer remaining, so they drank to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. When they "Damnaran out of conservative leaders to toast, Sean suggested, tion to Gorbachev!"

This was enthusiastically adopted, and the major countered immediately with, "Damnation to Frelinio and Joaquim Chissano."

The list of left-wingers was longer than that of conservatives, but they worked their way steadily down it, damning them all from Neil Kinnock to Teddy Kennedy and Jesse Jackson.

When they finally parted, Sean and the major embraced like brothers. Sean had filled all his pockets with cans of beer, so that when he returned to his Shangane guards they too greeted him affectionately as he distributed the cans among them.

In the morning the Shangane sergeant shook him awake while it was still dark. Sean's headache was terrifying and his mouth tasted as though a hyena had slept in it. It was one of the penances of being superbly physically fit: the body's reaction to the abuse of rtionately violent, the hangovers more fierce alcohol was propo aspirin for solace.

and he had not a single ming Sean had sweated out However, by the middle of the MO the last drops of stale beer. Their route was still south and west, and as they ran they saw many more fortifications and strong points. As the major had told him, they were cunningly dispersed and hidden. He saw light field artillery in sandbagged em placed detachments, together with mortars in their redoubts an armed with RPG sockets, the mobile hand-held stalwarts of the guerrilla arsenal: All the troops he saw seemed to be cheerful and of high morale, well fed and equipped. Nearly all of them wore the tiger-striped camouflage and combat boots with rubber soles and canvas uppers.

His escort had replenished their packs from the garrison stores.

aize meal was in two-kilo paper When they stopped to eat, the inch they lit the sacks marked "Premier Mills," the matches with whi fire were "Lion Matches," and the new bars of soap "Sunlight," all with the familiar double legend beneath the name: "Verwaardig in Suid Afrika, Made in South Africa."

"It's almost like being home again," Sean chuckled.

The Renaino defensive lines were in concentric rings like the ripples on a pond, and soon Sean realized they were approaching the center. They passed what were obviously training areas, where fresh-faced black recruits, both male and female, some of them in their early teens, sat in rows under thatched sun shelters like schoolchildren in a classroom, studying the makeshift blackboard so attentively that they barely glanced up as Sean's detachment trotted by.

From the blackboards, Sean saw the subjects they were being taught ranged from the infantry field manual to politic theory.

al Beyond the rear training areas they entered what appeared to be a series of low, sparsely manned kopjes. It was only when they were within a few meters of the side of one of these hills that Sean spotted the entrances to the dugouts.

They were more elaborately constructed and cunningly concealed than the others they had been passing all day. These would be invisible from the air and impervious to aerial bombardment, and Sean could tell, by the changed deportment of his guards and their more severe posture toward him, that they had reached the headquarters area of the Renamo army group.

Still, he was taken by surprise when without ceremony they turned aside and drew up at the entrance to one of the underground bunkers. There was a brief exchange while the Shangane sergeant handed Sean over to the guards at the entrance. Then Sean was hustled down the steps into the subterranean maze of corridors and caverns hacked out of the earth. The bunker was lit by bare electric bulbs, and somewhere far off he heard the hum of a generator. The side walls were reverted with sandbags that had been dressed neatly, and the roof was reinforced with hewn logs.

They entered a communications room. Sean saw at a glance that the radio equipment was sophisticated and well maintained. A

large-scale map of the whole northern and central Mozambican provinces of Zambia and Monica covered one wall.

Sean studied the map surreptitiously. He saw at once that the broken, mountainous ground in which this Renamo army group was ensconced was the Serra de Gorongosa, the Gorongosa Mountains, and that the river they had crossed, which formed the Renamo defensive fine, was the Pungwe River. The main railway line ran only thirty or forty miles further south of this position.

Before he could glean more information from the map he was hurried down another short passageway at the end of which there was a curtained-off doorway.

His escort called a respectful request to enter. The reply was sharp and authoritative. One of the guards prodded Sean, and he pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the room beyond.

"Comrade China." Sean smiled. "What a pleasant surprise."

"That form of address is no longer appropriate, Colonel Courtney. In future please address me as General China, or simply as "Sir." He sat at a desk in the center of the dugout. He was dressed in the ubiquitous tiger-striped battle dress, but it was adorned with silver paratrooper wings and four rows of gaudy ribbons across his left breast. A yellow silk scarf was knotted at his throat and his maroon beret and webbing belt hung on a peg behind him The butt of the automatic pistol in the webbing holster was ivory handled General China was obviously taking his conversion from Marxism to capitalism very seriously.

"I understand you have acquitted yourself well during the last few days and that you are sympathetic toward Renamo, its allies, and its objectives." His attitude toward Sean was benign, and it made him uneasy.

"How do you know that?" he demon "We do have radio you know, Colonel. We aren't total barbarians." China indicated The VHF set on the bench along the side wall of the dugout. "Tau passed a pleasant evening with Major Takawira, at my suggestion."

"Now would you like to tell me what the hell this is all about, General? You have abducted citizens of two friendly and powerful nations, South Africa and America."

General China held up his hands to stop him. "Please spare me your outrage, Colonel. Our people in Lisbon and elsewhere have already received complaints from both the Americans and the South Africans. Of course, we have denied abducting anybody and adopted an attitude of injured innocence. He paused and studied Sean for a moment. "Very enterprising of you to have got a message to the American embassy so soon, but then I wouldn't have expected anything less of you."

Before Sean could reply he lifted the handset of the field telephone on his desk and spoke quietly in a language Sean recognized as Portuguese but could not understand. He hung up and glanced expectantly toward the screen doorway. Instinctively Sean did the same.

The canvas curtain was drawn aside, and three persons ducked through the dugout. There were two uniformed black women carrying side arms and AK rifles. Between them, escorted closely, dressed in sun-bleached but freshly laundered khaki shirt and loose -fitting shorts, nearly the same clothes she had worn when last he saw her, was Claudia Monterro.

She was thin. That was the first thing that struck Sean. Her hair was drawn back and tied in a plait at the back of her head, and she was tanned to the color of melba toast.

Her eyes were huge in her thin face, and he had never before truly noticed the fine structure of her cheeks and jawbone. At the sight of her his heart seemed to stop and swell against his ribs, then race away again.

"Claudia!" he said. Her head jerked toward him. The blood drained from her face, leaving a cafe all lait color beneath her tan.

"Oh my God," she whispered. "I was so afraid-" She broke off, and they stared at each other, neither of them moving for a dozen beats of his heart. Then she said his name: "Sean." And it sounded like a sob.

She swayed toward him and lifted her hands, palms upward in a gesture of supplication, and her eyes were filled with all the suffering and hardship and longing of these last days.

With two long strides he reached her, and she threw herself against him, closed her eyes, and pressed her face against him. She had both arms locked around his chest, and the strength of her grip hampered his breathing.

"Darling," he whispered, and stroked her hair; it felt thick and springing under his fingers. "My darling, it's all right now."

She lifted her face to him, and her lips quivered and parted.

Blood had flowed back under the smooth brown skin. She seemed to glow, and the light in her eyes had changed to the sparkle of dark yellow topaz.

"You called me darling," she whispered.

He lowered his head over her and kissed her. Her lips opened under his, and the inside of her mouth was hot and lubricious. He probed it deeply with his tongue, and it tasted like the sap of sweet young grass.

From the desk, General China said quietly in Shangane, "Very well, now take the woman away."

Claudia's guards seized her and Plucked her Out Of his embrace She gave a small despairing wail and tried to resist, but they were powerful, heavily built women, and between them they lifted her feet off the ground and hustled her back through the screen doorway.

one of Sean shouted' Leave her," and started after them, but the guards drew the pistol from her webbing holster and pointed it at his belly. The canvas screen dropped between them and Claudia's cries of protest dwindled as she was dragged away. In the silence Sean turned slowly back to the man at the desk.

"You bastard," he whispered furiously. "You set that up."

"It went better than I could possibly have hoped for," General China agreed, "although some previous conversation I had with Miss Monterro concerning you gave me the idea she was more hunter."

interested in you as a man than as a professional "I'd like to twist your head off your shoulders. if you hurt her -Come, come, Colonel Courtney. I'm not going to hurt her. She is far too valuable.

She is a bargaining chip. Surely You realize that."

Slowly Sean's fury abated and he nodded stiffly. "Okay, China, what do you want?"

"Good." General China nodded. "I was waiting for you to ask that question. Sit down." He indicated one of the stools facing his desk. "I'll order a pot of tea and we can talk."

While they waited for the tea, General China busied himself with the papers on his desk, reading and signing a batch of orders t gave Sean a chance to recover himself When an orderly brought the tea, General China gestured for him to clear the papers from the desk.

When they were alone again, China sipped at his mug and want. Well, I regarded Sean over Se rim. "You ask what it is I confess that at first it was nothing more complicated than must simple retribution. After all, Colonel, it was you that destroyed my command that day at the camp at Inhlozane. You put the only manent blemish on my professional career, and you inflicted Pc "Reason physical damage on my person." He touched his ear.

I'm sure you will agree."

enough for me to want revenge, Sean remained silent. Although he had not tasted tea in days and craved it, he had not touched the mug, which stood on the edge of the desk in front of him. Of course, I knew that you were operating the Chiwewe hunting concession. In fact, as a junior minister of Mugabe's government, I was one of those who gave approval to the grant. I thought even then that it might be useful to have you so close to the border."

Sean forced himself to relax. He realized that he might learn more, achieve more, by a show of cooperation rather than defiance. It was difficult to do, for he could still taste Claudia's mouth.

He picked up the tea mug and took a mouthful.

"You certainly get around." He smiled. "Comrade one day, general the next. Marxist government minister one day, Renamo warlord the next."

China waved a hand deprecatingly. "The dialectics of Marxism never truly interested me. Looking back now, I realize I enlisted in the guerrilla army for a very good capitalistic reason. At the time it was the best way to get on in LIFE–does that make any sense to you, Colonel?"

"Perfect sense," Sean agreed. This time his smile was genumie.

"It's a well-known fact that the only way communism can be made to work is if you have capitalists to pay the bill and manage the show' You phrased that very well." China nodded his appreciation.

"I only found that out later, once ZANLA had ousted Smith and taken over the government in Harare. I discovered that as a former guerrilla I was feared and mistrusted by the soft fat cats who had avoided the actual fighting but now had taken control of the show.

I saw that far from receiving my just rewards, I was more likely to end up in Chikarubi prison, so I allowed my capitalistic instinct to guide me. With a few other like-minded citizens, we were arranging another change of government, and we were able to convince some of my old comrades-in-arms, who occupied senior positions in the Zimbabwean Army, that I would make a suitable replacement for Robert Mugabe."

"The good old African game of coup and counter coup Sean suggested.

"It is refreshing to talk to someone who follows the reasoning so readily." China nodded approval. "But then you are an African, albeit of the less fashionable hue."

"I'm flattered to be recognized as one," Sean told him. "But to return to your altruistic desire to put the best man in charge–"

"All, yes... well, somebody boasted to a woman, and she told her other lover, who just happened to be Mugabe's chief of intelligence, and I was forced to cross the border in some haste, and here I fell in with yet others of my former comrades who now had joined Renaino."

"But why Renamo?" Sean asked.

"It is my natural political home. I am good at what I do, and Renamo welcomed me. You see, I am part Shangane– As you know, our tribe sprawls over both sides of the artificial line imposed by surveyors of the colonial era, who took no consideration of demographic realities when they agreed on borders."

"If you are now a capitalist, General China, as you claim to be, then there must be more in it than that. Some future reward in store for you?"

"You do not disappoint Me," China said. "You are as perceptive and devious as any African. Naturally there is something in it for me.

When I have assisted Renamo to form the new government frica as its ally, between them they of Mozambique, with South A. They will will be able to apply irresistible pressure on Zimbabwe be able to force a change of government in Harare... a new president to replace Mugabe." in one mighty

"From General China to President China bound," Sean cut in. "I'll give you one thing, General, you don't think small."

"I'm touched by your appreciation of my aspirations."

"But where does all this leave me? You talked earlier of revenge for your impaired hearing-what made you so forgiving?"

China frowned and touched his ear. "To tell the truth, I would have enjoyed that. In fact, I had already planned a nocturnal raid on your camp at Chiwewe. I had moved up a unit of my men to the border opposite your concession and was awaiting only an opportunity to escape from my duties here for a few days personally to pay you a visit, when a change of plan was forced upon me.

Sean raised an eyebrow to signal his interest and attention.

"Very recently there has been a drastic alteration in the balance of power here in the celAral province. We of Renamo had fought ourselves into a domiAlant position. In fact, We control all the country except the thajor towns, we have reduced food production to the point where Frelimo must rely almost entirely on foreign aid, we have virtually strangled their transport system. We raid the roads and railways at will, and our forces move freely about the countryside, recruiting from the villages. We have, in fact, set up t changed our own alternative administration. However, all that very recently-"

"What happened?"

lately but stood up from the desk China did not answer immedi and went to stand in front of the wall map. "As a distinguished counter guerrilla fighter, Colonel Courtney, I do not have to explain our strategy to you nor do I have to lecture you on the weapons that we employ in the war of the flea. We don't fear nuclear bombs, heavy artillery, or modern pursuit planes. We chuckled when Robert Mugabe purchased two squadrons of fighters from his Soviet friends, obsolete MiGs, Floggers the Russians were pleased to be rid of and which Mugabe cannot afford to keep in the air. There are few, very few modern weapons we fear except"–China paused and turned to face Sean again' but you are the expert, Colonel. You know as much as any man alive about anti guerrilla operations. What do we fear most?"