Текст книги "The Dark of the Sun"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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cold; icy waves of it broke over him, and he was small and insignificant

in the grip of it.

His mind turned to his children and the loneliness howled round him like

a winter wind from the south. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers

against the lids. Their faces formed in the eye of his mind.

Christine with pink fat legs under her frilly skirt, and the face of a

thoughtful cherub, below soft hair cropped like a page boy.

"I love you best of all," she said with much seriousness, holding his

face with small hands only a little sticky with ice cream.

Simon, a miniature reproduction of Bruce even to the nose. Scabs on the

knees and dirt on the face. No demonstrations of affection from him, but

in its place something much better, a companionship far beyond his six

years.

Long discussions on everything from religion, "Why didn't Jesus used to

shave?" to politics, "When are you going to be prime minister, Dad?" And

the loneliness was a tangible thing now, like the coils of a reptile

squeezing his chest. Bruce ground out the cigarette beneath his heel and

tried to find refuge in his hatred for the woman who had been his wife.

The woman who had taken them from him.

But his hatred was a cold thing also, dead ash with a stale taste.

For he knew that the blame was not all hers. It was another of his

failures; perhaps if I had tried harder, perhaps if I had left some of

the cruel things unsaid, perhaps – yes, it might have been, and perhaps

and maybe. But it was not. It was over and finished and now I am alone.

There is no worse condition; no state beyond loneliness. It is the waste

land and the desolation.

Something moved near him in the night, a soft rustle of grass, a

presence felt rather than seen. And Bruce stiffened.

His right hand closed over his rifle. He brought it up slowly, his eyes

straining into the darkness.

The movement again, closer now. A twig popped underfoot. Bruce slowly

trained his rifle round to cover it, pressure on the trigger and his

thumb on the safety. Stupid to have wandered away from the camp; asking

for it, and now he had got it. Baluba tribesmen! He could see the figure

now in the dimness of starlight, stealthily moving across his front. How

many of them, he wondered. If I hit this one, there could be a dozen

others with him. Have to take a chance. One quick

burst and then run for it. A hundred yards to the camp, about an even

chance. The figure was stationary now, standing listening. Bruce could

see the outline of the head – no helmet, can't be one of us. He raised

the rifle and pointed it. Too dark to see the sights, but at that range

he couldn't miss. Bruce drew his breath softly, filling his lungs, ready

to shoot and run.

"Bruce?" Shermaine's voice, frightened, almost a whisper.

He threw up the rifle barrel. God, that was close. He had nearly killed

her.

"Yes, I'm here." His own voice was scratchy with the shock of

realization.

"Oh, there you are."

"What the hell are you doing out of the camp?" he demanded furiously as

anger replaced his shock.

"I'm sorry, Bruce, I came to see if you were all right. You were gone

such a long time."

"Well, get back to the camp, and don't try any more tricks like that."

There was a long silence, and then she spoke softly, unable to keep the

hurt out of her tone.

"I brought you something to eat. I thought you'd be hungry. I'm sorry if

I did wrong." She came to him, stooped and placed something on the

ground in front of him. Then she turned and was gone.

"Shermaine." He wanted her back, but the only reply was the fading

rustle of the grass and then silence. He was alone again.

He picked up the plate of food.

You fool, he thought. You stupid, ignorant, thoughtless fool.

You'll lose her, and you'll have deserved it. You deserve everything

you've had, and more.

You never learn, do you, Curry? You never learn that there is a penalty

for selfishness and for thoughtlessness.

He looked down at the plate in his hands. Bully beef and sliced onion,

bread and cheese.

Yes, I have learned, he answered himself with sudden determination.

I will not spoil this, this thing that is between this girl and me.

That was the last time; now I am a man I will put away childish things,

like temper and selfpity.

He ate the food, suddenly aware of his hunger. He ate quickly, wolfing

it. Then he stood up and walked back to the camp.

A sentry challenged him on the perimeter and Bruce answered with

alacrity. At night his gendarmes were very quick on the trigger; the

challenge was an unusual courtesy.

"It is unwise to go alone into the forest in the darkness," the sentry

reprimanded him.

"Why?" Bruce felt his mood changing. The depression evaporated.

"It is unwise," repeated the man vaguely.

"The spirits?" Bruce teased him delicately.

"An aunt of my sister's husband disappeared not a short throw of a spear

from my hut. There was no trace, no shout, nothing. I was there. It is

not a matter for doubt," said the man with dignity.

"A lion perhaps?" Bruce prodded him.

"If you say so, then it is so. I know what I know. But I say only that

there is no wisdom in defying the custom of the land."

Suddenly touched by the man's concern for him, Bruce dropped a hand on

to his shoulder and gripped it in the old (expression of affection.

"I will remember. I did it without thinking. He walked into the camp.

The incident had confirmed something he had vaguely suspected, but in

which previously he had felt no interest. The men liked him. A

hundred similar indications of this fact he had only half noted, not

caring one way or the other. But now it gave him intense pleasure, fully

compensating for the loneliness he had just experienced.

He walked past the little group of men round the cooking fire to where

the Ford stood at the head of the convoy.

Peering through the side window he could make out Shermaine's

blanket-wrapped form on the back seat. He tapped on the glass and she

sat up and rolled down the window.

"Yes?" she asked coolly.

"Thank you for the food."

"It is nothing." The slightest hint of warmth in her voice.

"Shermaine, sometimes I say things I do not mean. You startled me. I

nearly shot you."

"It was my fault. I should not have followed you."

"I was rude he persisted.

"Yes." She laughed now. That husky little chuckle. "You were

rude but with good reason. We shall forget it." She placed her hand on

his arm. "You must rest, you haven't slept for two days."

"Will you ride in the Ford with me tomorrow to show that I am forgiven?"

"of course," she nodded.

"Good night, Shermaine."

"Good night, Bruce," No, Bruce decided as he spread his blankets beside

the fire, I am not alone. Not any more.

What about breakfast, boss?"

"They can eat on the road. Give them a tin of bully each – we've wasted

enough time on this trip." The sky was paling and pinking above the

forest. It was light enough to read the dial of his wristwatch. Twenty

minutes to five.

"Get them moving, Ruffy. If we make Msapa Junction before dark we can

drive through the night. Home for breakfast tomorrow."

"Now you're talking, boss." Ruffy clapped his helmet on to his head and

went off to rouse the men who lay in the road beside the trucks.

Shermaine was asleep. Bruce leaned into the window of the Ford and

studied her face. A wisp of hair lay over her mouth, rising and falling

with her breathing. It tickled her nose and in her sleep it twitched

like a rabbit.

Bruce felt an almost unbearable pang of tenderness towards her.

With one finger he lifted the hair off her face.

Then he smiled at himself If you can feel like this before breakfast,

then you've got it in a bad way, he told himself.

Do you know something, he retorted. I like the feeling.

"Hey, you lazy wench!" He pulled the lobe of her ear.

"Time to wake up." It was almost half past five before the convoy got

under way. It had taken that long to bully and cajole the sleep out of

sixty men and get them into the lorries. This morning Bruce did not find

the delay unbearable. He had managed to find time for four hours" sleep

during the night. Four hours was not nearly enough to make up for the

previous two days.

Now he felt light-headed, a certain unreal quality of gaiety overlaying

his exhaustion, a carnival spirit. There was no longer the same urgency,

for the road to Elisabethville was clear and not too long. Home for

breakfast tomorrow!

"We'll be at the bridge in a little under an hour." He glanced

sideways at Shermaine.

"You've left a guard on it?"

"Ten men," answered Bruce. "We'll pick them up almost without stopping,

and then the next stop, room 201, Grand Hotel Leopold II, Avenue du

Kasai." He grinned in anticipation.

"A bath so deep it will slop over on to the floor, so hot it will take

five minutes to get into it. Clean clothes. A steak that thick, with

French salad and a bottle of Liebfraumilch."

"For breakfast!" protested

Shermaine.

"For breakfast," Bruce agreed happily. He was silent for a while,

savouring the idea. The road ahead of him was tiger-striped with the

shadows of the trees thrown by the low sun. The air that blew in through

the missing windscreen was cool and clean-smelling. He felt good. The

responsibility of command lay lightly on his shoulders this

morning; a pretty girl beside him, a golden morning, the horror of the

last few days half-forgotten, – they might have been going on a picnic.

"What are you thinking?" he asked suddenly. She was very quiet beside

him.

"I was wondering about the future," she answered softly.

"There is no one I know in Elisabethville, and I do not wish to stay

there." "Will you return to Brussels?" he asked. The question was

without significance, for Bruce Curry had very definite plans for the

immediate future, and these included Shermaine.

"Yes, I think so. There is nowhere else."

"You have relatives there?"

"An aunt."

"Are you close?" Shermaine laughed, but there was

bitterness in the husky chuckle. "Oh, very close. She came to see me

once at the orphanage. Once in all those years. She brought me a comic

book of a religious nature and told me to clean my teeth and brush my

hair a hundred strokes a day." "There is no one else?" asked

Bruce.

"No."

"Then why go back?" "What else is there to do?" she asked.

"Where else is there to go?"

"There's a life to live, and the rest of the world to visit."

"Is that what you are going to do?"

"That is exactly what I'm going to do, starting with a hot bath." Bruce

could feel it between them. They both knew it was there, but it was too

soon to talk about it. I have only kissed her once, but that was enough.

So what will happen?

Marriage? His mind shied away from that word with startling violence,

then came hesitantly back to examine it. Stalking it as though it were a

dangerous beast, ready to take flight again as soon as it showed its

teeth.

For some people it is a good thing. It can stiffen the spineless; ease

the lonely; give direction to the wanderers; spur those without ambition

– and, of course, there was the final unassailable argument in its

favour. Children.

But there are some who can only sicken and shrivel in the colourless

cell of matrimony. With no space to fly, your wings must weaken with

disuse; turned inwards, your eyes become short-sighted; when all your

communication with the rest of the world is through the glass windows of

the cell, then your contact is limited.

And I already have children. I have a daughter and I have a son.

Bruce turned his eyes from the road and studied the girl beside him.

There is no fault I can find. She is beautiful in the delicate, almost

fragile way that is so much better and longer-lived than blond hair and

big bosoms. She is unspoilt; hardship has long been her travelling

companion and from it she has learned kindness and humility.

She is mature, knowing the ways of this world; knowing death and fear,

the evilness of men and their goodness. I do not believe she has ever

lived in the fairy-tale cocoon that most young girls spin about

themselves.

And yet she has not forgotten how to laugh.

Perhaps, he thought, perhaps. But it is too soon to talk about it.

"You are very grim." Shermaine broke the silence, but the laughter

shivered just below the surface of her voice. "Again you are

Bonaparte. And when you are grim your nose is too big and cruel. It is a

nose of great brutality and it does not fit the rest of your face.

I think that when they had finished you they had only one nose left in

stock. "It is too big," they said, "but it is the only nose left, and

when he smiles it will not look too bad." So they took a chance and

stuck it on anyway."

"Were you never taught that it is bad manners to poke fun at a man's

weakness?" Bruce fingered his nose ruefully.

"Your nose is many things, but not weak. Never weak." She laughed now

and moved a little closer to him.

"You know you can attack me from behind your own perfect nose, and

I cannot retaliate."

"Never trust a man who makes pretty speeches so easily, because he

surely makes them to every girl he meets." She slid an inch further

across the seat until they were almost touching. "You waste your

talents, mon capitaine. I am immune to your charm."

"In just one minute I will stop this car and-"

"You cannot." Shermaine jerked her head to indicate the two gendarmes in

the seat behind them.

"What would they think, Bonaparte? It would be very bad for discipline."

"Discipline or no discipline, in just one minute I will stop this car

and spank You soundly before I kiss you."

"One threat does not frighten me, but because of the other I will leave

your poor nose." She moved away a little and once more Bruce studied her

face.

Beneath the frank scrutiny she fidgeted and started to blush.

"Do you mind! Were you never taught that it is bad manners to stare?" So

now I am in love again, thought Bruce. This is only the third time, an

average of once every ten years or so. It frightens me a little because

there is always pain with it.

The exquisite pain of loving and the agony of losing.

It starts in the loins and it is very deceptive because you think it is

only the old thing, the tightness and tension that any well-rounded

stern or cheeky pair of breasts will give you. Scratch it, you think,

it's just a small itch. Spread a little of the warm salve on it and it

will be gone in no time.

But suddenly it spreads, upwards and downwards, all through you.

The pit of your stomach feels hot, then the flutters round the heart.

It's dangerous now; once it gets this far it's incurable and you can

scratch and scratch but all you do is inflame it.

Then the last stages, when it attacks the brain. No pain there, that's

the worst sign. A heightening of the senses; your eyes are

sharper, your blood runs too fast, food tastes good, your mouth wants to

shout and legs want to run.

Then the delusions of grandeur: you are the cleverest, strongest, most

masculine male in the universe, and you stand ten feet tall in your

socks.

How tall are you now, Curry, he asked himself. About nine feet six and I

weigh twenty stone, he answered, and almost laughed aloud.

And how does it end? It ends with words. Words can kill anything. It

ends with cold words; words like fire that stick in the structure and

take hold and lick it up, blackening and charring it, bringing it down

in smoking ruins.

It ends in suspicion of things not done, and in the certainty of

things done and remembered. It ends with selfishness and carelessness,

and words, always words.

It ends with pain and gteyness, and it leaves scar tissue and damage

that will never heal.

Or it ends without fuss and fury. It just crumbles and blows away like

dust on the wind. But there is still the agony of loss.

Both these endings I know well, for I have loved twice, and now I

love again.

Perhaps this time it does not have to be that way.

Perhaps this time it will last. Nothing is for ever, he thought.

Nothing is for ever, not even life, and perhaps this time if I cherish

it and tend it carefully it will last that long, as long as life.

"We are nearly at the bridge," said Shermaine beside him, and

Bruce started. The miles had dropped unseen behind them and now the

forest was thickening. It crouched closer to the earth, greener and

darker along the river.

Bruce slowed the Ford and the forest became dense bush around them, the

road tunnel through it. They came round one last bend in the track and

out of the tunnel of green vegetation into the clearing where the road

met the railway line and ran beside it on to the heavy timber platform

of the bridge.

Bruce stopped the Ranchero, switched off the engine and they all sat

silently, staring out at the solid jungle on the far bank with its

screen of creepers and monkey-ropes hanging down, trailing the surface

of the deep green swiftflowing river. They stared at the stumps of the

bridge thrusting out from each bank towards each other like the arms of

parted lovers; at the wide gap between with the timbers still

smouldering and the smoke drifting away downstream over the green water.

"It's gone," said Shermaine. "It's been burnt."

"Oh, no," groaned

Bruce." Oh, God, no!" With an effort he pulled his eyes from the charred

remains of the bridge and turned them on to the jungle about them, a

hundred feet away, ringing them in. Hostile, silent. "Don't get out of

the car," he snapped as Shermaine reached for the door handle.

"Roll your window up, quickly." She obeyed.

"They're waiting in there." He pointed at the edge of the jungle.

Behind them the first of the convoy came round the bend into the

clearing. Bruce jumped from the Ford and ran back towards the leading

truck.

"Don't get out, stay inside," he shouted and ran on down the line,

repeating the instruction to each of them as he passed.

When he reached Ruffy's cab he jumped on to the running board, jerked

the door open, slipped in on to the seat and slammed the door.

"They've burnt the bridge."

"What's happened to the boys we left to guard it?"

"I don't know but we'll find out. Pull up alongside the others so that I

can talk to them." Through the half-open window he issued his orders to

each of the drivers and within ten minutes all the vehicles had been

manoeuvred into the tight defensive circle of the laager, a formation

Bruce's ancestors had used a hundred years before.

"Ruffy, get out those tarpaulins and spread them over the top to form a

roof We don't want them dropping arrows in amongst us." Ruffy

selected half a dozen gendarmes and they went to work, dragging out the

heavy folded canvas.

"Hendry, put a couple of men under each truck. Set up the Brens in case

they try to rush us." In the infectious urgency of defence, Wally did

not make his usual retort, but gathered his men. They wriggled on their

stomachs under the vehicles, rifles pointed out towards the silent

jungle.

"I want the extinguishers here in the middle so we can get them in a

hurry. They might use fire again." Two gendarmes ran to each of the cabs

and unclipped the fire-extinguishers from the dashboards.

"What can I do?" Shermaine was standing beside Bruce.

"Keep quiet and stay out of the way," said Bruce as he turned and

hurried across to help Ruffy's gang with the tarpaulins.

It took them half an hour of desperate endeavour before they completed

the fortifications to Bruce's satisfaction.

"That should hold them." Bruce stood with Ruffy and Hendry in the centre

of the laager and surveyed the green canvas roof above them and the

closely packed vehicles around them. The Ford was parked beside the

tanker, not included in the outer ring for its comparative size would

have made it a weak point in the defence.

"It's going to be bloody hot and crowded in here," grumbled

Hendry.

"Yes, I know." Bruce looked at him. "Would you like to relieve the

congestion by waiting outside?"

"Funny boy, big laugh," answered

Wally.

"What now, boss?" Ruffy put into words the question Bruce had been

asking himself.

"You and I will go and take a look at the bridge," he said.

"You'll look a rare old sight with an arrow sticking out of your back,"

grinned Wally. "Boy, that's going to kill me!"

"Ruffy, get us half a dozen gas capes each. I doubt their arrows will go

through them at a range of a hundred feet, and of course we'll wear

helmets."

"Okay, boss." It was like being in a sauna bath beneath the six layers

of rubberized canvas. Bruce could feel the sweat squirting from his

pores with each pace, and rivulets of it coursing down his back and

flanks as he and Ruffy left the laager and walked up the road to the

bridge.

Beside him Ruffy's bulk was so enhanced by the gas capes that he

reminded Bruce of a prehistoric monster reaching the end of its

gestation period.

"Warm enough, Ruffy?" he asked, feeling the need for humour. The ring of

jungle made him nervous. Perhaps he had underestimated the carry of a

Baluba arrow – despite the light reed shaft, they used iron heads,

barbed viciously and ground to a needle point, and poison smeared

thickly between the barbs.

man, look at me shiver," grunted Ruffy and the sweat greased down his

jowls and dripped from his chin.

Long before they reached the access to the bridge the stench of

putrefaction crept out to meet them. In Bruce's mind every smell had its

own colour, and this one was green, the same green as the sheen of

putrefaction on rotting meat. The stench was so heavy he could almost

feel it bearing down on them, choking in his throat and coating his

tongue and the roof of his mouth with the oily oversweetness.

"No doubt what that is!" Ruffy spat, trying to get the taste out of his

mouth.

"Where are they?" gagged Bruce, starting to pant from the heat and the

effort of breathing the fouled air.

They reached the bank and Bruce's question was answered as they looked

down on to the narrow beach.

There were the black remains of a dozen cooking fires along the water's

edge, and closer to the high bank were two crude structures of poles.

For a moment their purpose puzzled Bruce and then he realized what they

were. He had seen those crosspieces suspended between two uprights often

before in hunting camps throughout Africa. They were paunching racks! At

intervals along the crosspieces were the hark ropes that had been used

to string up the game, heels first, with head and forelegs dangling and

belly bulging forward so that at the long abdominal stroke of the knife

the viscera would drop out easily.

But the game they had butchered on these racks were men, his men.

He counted the hanging ropes. There were ten of them, so no one had

escaped.

"Cover me, Ruffy. I'm going down to have a look." It was a penance Bruce

was imposing upon himself. They were his men, and he had left them

there.

"Okay, boss." Bruce clambered down the well-defined path to the beach.

Now the smell was almost unbearable and he found the source of

it. Between the racks lay a dark shapeless mass. It moved with flies;

its surface moved, trembled, crawled with flies. Suddenly, humming, they

lifted in a cloud from the pile of human debris, and then settled once

more upon it.

A single fly buzzed round Bruce's head and then settled on his hand.

Metallic blue body, wings cocked back, it crouched on his skin and

gleefully rubbed its front legs together. Bruce's throat and stomach

convulsed as he began to retch. He struck at the fly and it

darted away.

There were bones scattered round the cooking fires and a skull lay near

his feet, split open to yield its contents.

Another spasm took Bruce and this time the vomit came up into his mouth,

acid and warm. He swallowed it, turned away and scrambled up the bank to

where Ruffy waited. He stood there gasping, suppressing his nausea until

at last he could speak.

"All right, that's all I wanted to know," and he led the way back to the

circle of vehicles.

Bruce sat on the bonnet of the Ranchero and sucked hard on his

cigarette, trying to get the taste of death from his mouth.

"They probably swam downstream during the night and climbed the supports

of the bridge. Kanaki and his boys wouldn't have known anything about it

until they came over the sides." He drew on the cigarette again and

trickled the smoke out of his nostrils, fumigating

the back of his throat and his nasal passages. "I should have thought of

that. I should have warned Kanaki of that."

"You mean they ate all ten of them – Jesus!" even Wally Hendry was

impressed. "I'd like to have a look at that beach.

It must be quite something."

"Good!" Bruce's voice was suddenly

harsh. "I'll put you in charge of the burial squad. You can go down

there and clean it up before we start work on the bridge." And Wally did

not argue.

"You want me to do it now?" he asked.

"No," snapped Bruce. "You and Ruffy are going to take two of the trucks

back to Port Reprieve and fetch the materials we need to repair the

bridge." They both looked at Bruce with rising delight.

"I never thought of that," said Wally.

"There's plenty of roofing timber in the hotel and the office block,"

grinned Ruffy.

"Nails," said Wally as though he were making a major contribution.

"We'll need nails." Bruce cut through their comments. "It's two o'clock

now. You can get back to Port Reprieve by nightfall, collect the

material tomorrow morning and return here by the evening. Take those two

trucks there. – check to see they're full of gas and you'll

need about fifteen men.

Say, five gendarmes, in case of trouble, and ten of those civilians."

"That should be enough," agreed Ruffy.

"Bring a couple of dozen sheets of corrugated iron back with you.

We'll use them to make a shield to protect us from arrows while we're

working."

"Yeah, that's a good idea." They settled the details, picked men to go

back, loaded the trucks, worked them out of the laager, and

Bruce watched them disappear down the road towards Port Reprieve. An

ache started deep behind his eyes and suddenly he was very tired,

drained of energy by too little sleep, by the heat and by the emotional

pace of the last four days.

He made one last circuit of the laager, checking the defences, chatting

for a few minutes with his gendarmes and then he stumbled to the Ford,

slid on to the front seat, laid his helmet and rifle aside, lowered his

head on to his arms and was instantly asleep.

Shermaine woke him after dark with food unheated from the cans and a

bottle of Ruffy's beer.

"I'm sorry, Bruce, we have no fire to cook upon. It is very unappetizing

and the beer is warm." Bruce sat up and rubbed his eyes.

Six hours" sleep had helped; they were less swollen and inflamed. The

headache was still there.

"I'm not really hungry, thank you. It's this heat."

"You must eat, Bruce. Try just a little," and then she smiled. "At least

you are more gallant after having rested. It is

"Thank you" now, instead of

"Keep quiet and stay out of the way"." Ruefully Bruce grimaced.

"You are one of those women with a built-in recording unit; every word

remembered and used in evidence against a man later." Then he touched her

hand. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I like your apologies, mon capitaine. They

are like the rest of you, completely

masculine. There is nothing about you which is not male, sometimes

almost overpoweringly so." Impishly she watched his eyes; he knew she

was talking about the little scene on the train that Wally Hendry had

interrupted.

"Let's try this food," he said, and then a little later, "not bad – you

are an excellent cook."

"This time the credit must go to Mr. Heinz– and his fifty-seven

children. But one day I shall make for you one of my tournedos all

Prince. It is my special."

"Speciality," Bruce corrected her automatically.

The murmur of voices within the laager was punctuated occasionally by a

burst of laughter. There was a feeling of relaxation. The canvas roof

and the wall of vehicles gave security to them all. Men lay in

dark huddles of sleep or talked quietly in small groups.

Bruce scraped the metal plate and filled his mouth with the last

of the food.

"Now I must check the defences again."

"Oh, Bonaparte. It is always duty." Shermaine sighed with resignation.

"I will not be long."

"And I'll wait here for you." Bruce picked up his rifle and helmet, and

was half-way out of the Ford when out in the jungle the drum started.

"Bruce!" whispered Shermaine and clutched his arm. The voices round them

froze into a fearful silence, and the drum beat in the night. It had a

depth and resonance that you could feel, the warm

sluggish air quivered with it. Not fixed in space but filling it,

beating monotonously, insistently, like the pulse of all creation.

"Bruce!" whispered Shermaine again; she was trembling and the fingers on

his arm dug into his flesh with the strength of terror. It steadied his

own leap of fear.

"Baby, baby," he soothed her, taking her to his chest and holding her

there. "It's only the sound of two pieces of wood being knocked together

by a naked savage. They can't touch us here, you know that."

"Oh, Bruce, it's horrible – it's like bells, funeral bells."

"That's silly talk." Bruce held her at arm's length. "Come with me. Help

me calm down these others, they'll be terrified. You'll have to help

me."

And he pulled her gently across the seat out of the Ford, and with one

arm round her waist walked her into the centre of the laager.

What will counteract the stupefying influence of the drum, the hypnotic

beat of it, he asked himself. Noise, our own noise.

"Joseph, M'pophu-" he shouted cheerfully picking out the two best

singers " amongst his men. "I regret the drumming is of a low standard,

but the Baluba are monkeys with no understanding of music.

Let us show them how a Bambala can sing." They stirred; he could feel

the tension diminish.

"Come, Joseph-" He filled his lungs and shouted the opening chorus of

one of the planting songs, purposely offkey, singing so badly that it

must sting them.

Someone laughed, then Joseph's voice hesitantly starting the chorus,

gathering strength. M'pophu coming in with the bass to give a solid

foundation to the vibrant, sweet-ringing tenor. Half-beat to the drum,

hands clapped in the dark; around him Bruce could feel the rhythmic

swinging of bodies begin.