The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 45

"Again, I do not know, I'm sorry, Mr. Mellow."

"If he is alive, then may the Lord have mercy on his soul," Craig whispered.

He could imagine what Tungata must be suffering. He was silent for a few minutes and then he changed the line of questioning.

"General Fungabera has seized my property for himself, not for the state? I am correct in believing that?"

"The general wanted that land very badly. He spoke of it often."

"How? I mean, even qjjsi-legally, how will he work it?"

"It is very simple,".Timon explained. "You are an admit red enemy of the state. Your property is forfeited. It will be confiscated to the state. The Land Bank will repudiate the suretyship for your loan under the release clause which you signed. The custodian of enemy property will put up your shares of Rholands Company for sale by private tender.

General Fungabera's tender will be accepted his brotherin-law is custodian of enemy property. The tender price will be greatly advantageous to the general."

"Add

41 bet," said Craig bitterly.

"But why should he go to such lengths?" Sally-Anne demanded. "He must be a millionaire many times over.

Surely he has enough already?"

"Miss Jay. For some men there is no such thing as enough."

"He cannot hope to get away with it, surely?" "Who is there to prevent him doing so, Miss Jay?" And when she did not reply, Timon went on, "Africa is going back to where it was before the white man intruded. There is only one criterion for a ruler here and that is strength.

We Africans do not trust anything else. Fungabera is strong, as Tungata Zebiwe was once strong. "Timon glanced at his wrist-watch. "But we must eat. I think we will have a long day ahead of us." He pulled off the track, and drove the Land-Rover into a patch of second-growth scrub. He climbed onto the bormetand arranged branches to cover the vehicle, hiding it from detection from the air, and then opened the case of emergency rations from the locker under the pa.s.senger seat. There was water in the tank under the floorboards Craig filled a metal canteen with sand and soaked the sand with gasoline from the reserve tank. It made a smokeless burner on which to brew tea. They ate the unappetizing cold rations with little conversation.

Once Timon turned up the volume on the radio to listen to a transmission, then shook his head.

"Nothing to do with us." He came back to squat beside Craig.

"How far to the border, do you reckon?" Craig asked with a mouth full of cold, sticky bully beef.

"Forty miles, or a little more." The radio crackled to life again, and Timon jumped u PI and stooped over it attentively.

"There is a unit of the Third Brigade just a few miles ahead of us," he reported. "They are at the mission station Jim at Empandeni. There has been action against dissidents, but they had dealt with them and they are moving out.

Perhaps this way. We must be careful."

"I will check that we are hidden from the road." Craig stood up. "Sally-Anne, douse the fire! Captain, cover me!" He picked up the AK 47 and ran back to the track.

Critically he examined the patch of scrub that concealed the Land-Rover and then brushed over his own tracks and those of the vehicle with a leafy twig, and carefully straightened the gra.s.s that the Land-Rover had flattened where it left the road. It wasn't perfect, but it would bear a cursory examination from a speeding vehicle, he thought, and then there was a faint vibration on the windless air.

He listened. The sound of truck motors, strengthening.

Craig ran back to the Land-Rover and climbed into the front seat beside Timon.

"Put your rifle back in the rack," Timon said, and when Craig hesitated, "Please do as I say, Mr. Mellow. If they find us, it will be useless to fight. I will have to try and talk our way through. I couldn't explain if you were armed." Reluctantly Craig pa.s.sed the weapon back to Sally Anne She racked it and Craig was left feeling naked and vulnerable. He clenched his fists in his lap. The sound of motors grew swiftly, and then over them the voices of men singing. The song grew louder, and despite his tension Craig felt the hair p.r.i.c.kle on the nape of his neck to the peculiar beauty of African-4voices raised in song.

"Third Brigade," Timon said. "That is the "Song of the Rain Winds", the praise song of the regiment." Neither of them replied, and Timon hummed the tune to himself, and then began to sing softly. He had a startlingly true and thrilling voice.

"When the nation bunts, the rain winds bring relief, When the cattle are drought-stricken, the rain winds lift them up, When your children cry with thirst, the rain winds slake them, We are the winds that bring the rain, We are the good winds of the nation." Timon translated from the Shana for their benefit, and now Craig could see the grey dust of the trucks smoking up above the scrub, and the singing was close and clear.

There was a flash of reflected sunlight off metal, and then through the foliage Craig caught quick glimpses of the pa.s.sing convoy. There were three trucks, painted a dull sand colour, and the backs were crowded with soldiers in battle camouflage and bush hats, their weapons held ready at the high port position. On the cab of the last truck rode an officer, the only one of them wearing the red beret and silver cap badge He looked directly at Craig, and seemed very close, the screen of foliage suddenly very spa.r.s.e. Craig shrank back in his seat.

Then, thankfully, the convoy was past, the rumble of engines and the singing dwindling, the pale dust settling.

Timon Nbebi exhaled a long breath. "There will be others," he cautioned, and, with his fingers on the ignition key, waited until the silence was complete once again.

Then he started the Land-Rover, reversed out of the scrub and turned back onto the track.

He swung the Land-Rover in the opposite direction from the convoy, and they drove over the rugged tracks that the trucks had imprinted deeply into the sandy earth.

They drove for another twenty minutes before Timon ducked down abruptly in his seat, to peer up at the sky through the windshield.

"Smoke," he said. "Empandeni is just ahead. Will you have your camera ready, Miss Jay? I believe the Third Brigade will have left something for you." They came to the maize fields that surrounded the mission village. The maize stalks had dried, the cobs in their yellow sheaths were beginning to droop heavily, ready for the harvest. There had been women working in the fields. One of them lay beside the track. She had been shot in the back as she ran, the bullet had exited between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The unweaned child that she carried on her back had been bayoneted, many times. The flies rose up in a blue hum as they pa.s.sed and then settled again.

n.o.body spoke. Sally-Anne reached into her camera-bag and brought out her Nikon. She was bloodless grey under her freckles.

The other women lay further from the road, mere bundles of gay cloth, heavily stained. There were possibly fifty huts in the village, all of them were burning, the thatched roofs torching up to the clear blue morning sky.

They had thrown most of the corpses into the burning huts, leaving black puddles drying where they had fallen and drag marks in the dust. The smell of seared flesh was very strong, it coated the roofs of their mouths like congealed pork fat. Craig's stomach heaved, and he covered his mouth and nose with his hand.

"These are dissidents?". Sally-Anne whispered. Her lips were icy white. The motor drive of her Nikon whirred as she shot through the open window.

They had killed the chickens, the loose feathers rolled on the light breeze, like the stuffing from a burst pillow.

"Stop!" Sally-Anne ordered.

"It is dangerous to stay, "id Timon.

"Stop," Sally' Anne repeated.

She left the door open, and went among the huts.

Working swiftly, changing roll after roll of film with practised nimble fingers, while her white lips trembled and her eyes behind the lens were huge with horror.

"We must move on," said Timon.

"Wait." Sally-Anne moved quickly forward, doing her job like the professional she was. She moved behind a group of huts. The smell of burning flesh nauseated Craig, and the heat from the fires came at him in great furnace gusts as the breeze veered.

Sally Anne screamed and the two men jumped from the Land-Rover and ran, c.o.c.king their rifles, diverging to give each other covering fire, Craig finding his old training returning instinctively. He came around the side of a hut.

Sally-Anne stood in the open, no longer able to use her camera. A naked black woman lay at her feet. The woman is upper ocy was that of a comely, healthy young woman, below her navel she was a pink skinless monstrosity. She had dragged herself back out of the fire into which they had thrown her. There were places on her lower body where the burning was not deep, here the flesh was piebald pink and weeping lymph. Then in other places the bone was exposed; her hipbones charred black as charcoal, protruded obscenely from the scorched meat of her pelvic area. The lining of her stomach had burned through and her entrails bulged from the opening. Miraculously, she was still alive. Her fingers raked the dust with a repet.i.tive, mechanical movement. Her mouth opened and closed convulsively, making no sound, and her eyes were wide open, aware and suffering.

"Go back to the Land' Rover please, Miss Jay," Timon Nbebi said. "There is nothing you can do to help her." Sally-Anne stood stiffly, unable to move. Craig put his arms around her shoulders and turned her away. He led her back towards the Land-Rover.