The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 46

At the corner of the burning hut Craig glanced back.

Timon Nbebi had moved up close to the maimed woman, he stood over her with the AK 47 held ready on his hip, his whole attention was focused upon her and his face was almost as riven with suffering as was the woman's.

Craig took Sally-Anne around the hut. Behind them there was the whip-crack of a single shot, muted by the crackle of flames all around them. Sally' Anne stumbled and then caught her balance. When they reached the Land' Rover Sally-Anne leaned against the cab and doubled over slowly. She vomited in the dust and then straightened up and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Craig took the bottle of cane spirit from the cubby hole.

There was an inch of the clear liquor remaining. He gave it to Sally-Anne and she drank it like water. Craig took the empty bottle back from her, and then abruptly and savagely hurled it into the burning hut.

Timon Nbebi came around the hut. Wordlessly he climbed behind the steering, wheel and Craig helped Sally Anne into the rear seat. They drove slowly through the rest of the village, their heads turning from side to side as each fresh horror was revealed.

As they pa.s.sed the little church of red brick, the roof collapsed in upon itself, and the wooden cross on the spire was swallowed in a belch of sparks and flames and blue smoke. In the bright sunlight the flames were almost colourless.

imon Nbebi used the radio the way a navigator uses an echo sounder to find the channel through shoal water.

The Third Brigade roadblocks and ambushes were reporting over the VHF vast to their area headquarters, giving their positions a* part of their routine reports, and Timon pin-pointed them on his map.

Twice they avoided road-blocks by taking side-tracks and cattle paths, groping forward carefully through the acacia forest. Twice more they came to small villages, mere cattle stations, homes of two or three Matabele families.

The Third Brigade had preceded them, and the crows and vultures had followed, picking at the partially roasted carca.s.ses in the warm ashes of the burned-out huts.

They kept moving westwards, when the tracks allowed.

At each prominence that afforded a view ahead, Timon parked in cover and Craig climbed to the crest to scout ahead. In every direction he looked, the towering blue of the sky above the wide horizon was marred by standing columns of smoke from burning villages. Westwards still they crawled, and the terrain changed swiftly as they approached the edge of the Kalahari Desert. There were fewer and still fewer features. The land levelled into a grey, monotonous plain, burning endlessly under the high merciless sun. The trees became stunted, their branches heat-tortured as the limbs of cripples. This was a land able to support only the most rudimentary human needs, the beginning of the great wilderness. Still they edged westwards into it.

The sun made its noon and slid down the sky, and they had made good a mere thirty miles since dawn. Still at least another twenty miles to reach the border, Craig estimated from the map, and all three of them were exhausted from the unremitting strain and the heat in the unlined metal cab.

In the middle of the afternoon, they stopped again for a few minutes. Craig brewed tea, Sally-Anne went behind a low clump of thorn scrub nearby and squatted out of view, while Timon hunched over the radio.

"There are no more villages ahead, Timon said as he returned the set. "I think we are Clear, but I have never been further than this. I am not sure what to expect." J worked here with Tungata when we were in the Game Department. That was back in "72. We followed a pride of cattle-killing lions nearly a hundred miles across the border. It's bad country no surface water, soft going with salt-pans and-" he broke off as Tinion signalled him urgently to silence.

Tirrion had picked up another voice on the radio. It was more authoritative, more cutting than the reports of the A, platoon he had been monitoring. Clearly it was demanding priority and clearing the net for an urgent flash. Timon Nbebi stiffened, and exclaimed under his breath.

"What is it?" Craig could not contain his forebodings, but Timon held up a hand for silence and listened to the long staccato transmission that followed in Shana. When the carrier beam of the radio went mute, he looked up at them.

"A patrol has picked up the three men we marooned this morning. That was an alert to all units. General Fungabera has given top priority to our recapture. Two spotter aircraft have been diverted to this area. They should be overhead very soon. The general has calculated our position with great accuracy, he has ordered the punitive units to the east of us to abandon their missions and to move in this direction immediately. He has guessed that we are trying to reach the border south of Plumtree and the railway-line. He is rushing two platoons down from the main border-post at Plumtree to block us." He paused, took off his spectacles and polished the lenses on the tail of his silk cravat. Without his spectacles, he was as myopic as an owl in daylight.

"General Fungabera has given the "leopard" code to all units-" He paused again, and then almost apologetically explained, "The "leopard" code is the "kill on sight" order, which is rather bad news, I'm afraid." Craig s.n.a.t.c.hed the rrw and unrolled it on the bonnet.

Sally-Anne came ha4 and stood close behind them.

"We are here," he said, and Timon nodded agreement.

"This is the only track from here on, and it angles northwards about west-northwest," Craig muttered to himself. "The patrol from Plumtree must come down it to meet us, and the punitive groups must come up it behind us." Again Timon nodded. "This time they won't drive past us. They'll be on the lookout." The radio came alive again and Timon darted back to it. His expression became even more lugubrious as he listened.

"The punitive unit behind us has picked up the tracks of the Land-Rover. They are not far behind and they are coming up fast," he reported. "They have contacted the patrol on the road ahead of us. We are boxed in. I don't know what to do, Mr. Mellow. They'll be here in a few minutes." And he looked appealingly at Craig.

"All right." Craig took control quite naturally. "We'll go for the border cross-country."

"But you said that is bad country-"Timon began.

"Put her into four-wheel drive and get going," Craig snapped. "I'll ride on the roof rack to guide you. Sally, Anne, take the front seat." Perched on the roof tack the AK 47 slung over one shoulder, Craig took a sight with the hand-bearing compa.s.s from Timon's map-case, made a rough calculation of the magnetic deflection, and called down to Timon.

"Right, turn right that's it. Hold that course." He was lined up on the white glare of a small salt-pan a few miles ahead, and the surface under them seemed firm and reasonably fast. The Land-Rover accelerated away, barging through the low thorn scrub, weaving only when they came to coa.r.s.er thorn or one of the stunted trees. Craig called corrections after every deviation.

They were making twenty-five miles an hour and it was clear as far as the horizon. The pursuing trucks, heavy and c.u.mbersome, couldn't outrun them, Craig was sure, and the border was less than an hour ahead, darkness not far off. That cup of tea had cheered him, and Craig felt his spirits lift.

"All right, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, come and get us!"he challenged the unseen enemy and laughed into the wind. He had forgotten the way adrenalin buzzed in the blood when danger was close. Once he had thrived on the feel of it, and the addiction was still there, he realized.

PP.

L He swivelled and looked back, and saw it immediately likea little w.i.l.l.y, w.i.l.l.y the dust devils that dance on the desert in the hot stillness of midday, but this dust cloud was moving with purpose, and it was exactly where he had expected to find it, due east of them and coming fast down the road they had just left.

"I have one patrol in sight," he leaned out and shouted down to the open driver's window. "They are about five miles behind." Then he looked back again, and grimaced at their own dust cloud thrown up by the four-wheel drive. It followed them likea bridal train and hung for minutes after they had pa.s.sed, a long pale smear above the scrub. They could hardly miss it. He was watching the dust when he should have been looking ahead. The ant-bear hole was screened from the driver's view by the pale desert gra.s.s. They hit it at twenty-five miles an hour, and it stopped them dead.

Craig was hurled forward off the roof, flying out over the bonnet to hit the earth with his elbows and his knees and the side of his face. He lay in the dust, stunned and hurting. Then he rolled into a sitting position and spat muddy blood from his mouth. He checked his teeth with his tongue, and they were all firm. There was no skin on his elbows, and blood seeped through the knees of his jeans. He fumbled at the strap of his leg and it was intact.

He dragged himself to his feet.

The Land-Rover was4ilown heavily on her left front, cha.s.sis deep in the h*le. He limped to the pa.s.senger side, cursing his own inattention, and jerked the door open.

The windscreen was cracked and starred where Sally, Anne's head had hit, and she was slumped forward in the seat.

"Oh G.o.d! he whispered, and lifted her head gently.

There was a lump the size of a blue acorn over her eye, but when he touched her cheek, her vision focused and she looked at him.

"Are you hurt badly?" She struggled upright. "You are bleeding," she mumbled, likea drunk.

"It's a graze," he rea.s.sured her, and squeezed her arm, looking across her at Timon.

His mouth had struck the steering-wheel, his upper lip was cut through and one of his incisors had broken off at the gum. His mouth was full of blood, and he staunched it with the silk scarf.

"Get her in reverse," Craig ordered him, and pulled Sally-Anne from the cab to lighten the vehicle. She staggered a few paces and flopped down on her backside, still groggy and confused from the head blow.

The engine had stalled, and it baulked at the starter while Craig fretted and watched the dust cloud behind them. It was no longer distant, and it was coming on fast.

t ast the engine caught, stuttered and then roared as Timon trod too heavily on the pedal. He let out the clutch with a bang, and all four wheels spun wildly.

"Easy, man, you'll break a half shaft Craig snarled at him.

Timon tried again, more gently, but again the wheels spun, blowing out dust behind them, and the vehicle roe I ked crazily but remained bogged down.

Stop it! Craig pounded Timon's shoulder to make him obey. The spinning wheels in the soft earth were digging the Land-Rover into its own grave. Craig dropped on his belly and peered under the cha.s.sis. The left front wheel had dropped into the hole, and was turning in air; the weight of the vehicle rested on the blades of the front suspension.

"Trenching-tool, "Craig called to Timon.

"We left them," Timon reminded him, and Craig went at the earth on the rim of the hole with his bare hands.