The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 73

Engine out. We are going in." And then briskly she began her preparations for a 11n f0fed landing as the Cessna started to sink gently away, towards the broken hilly and forested land beneath them. She pulled on MI flap to slow their airspeed.

"Seat-belts, everybody," she said. "Shoulder-straps also." She was switching off the fuel-tanks, the master switches, shutting down to prevent fire on impact.

"Can you see an opening?" she asked Craig, peering hopelessly through the smeared windscreen.

"Nothing." The forest was a dark green mattress below them.

q will try to pick two big trees and knock Our wings off between them that will take the speed off us. But it's still going to be a daddy of a hit," she said, as she struggled with the panel of her side-window.

"I can knock it out for you,"Tungata offered.

Good, "Sally-Anne accepted.

Tungata leaned over and with three blows of his bunched fist smashed the Perspex sheet out of its frame.

Sally-Anne thrust her head out, slitting her eyes against the wind.

The earth came up towards them, faster and faster, the hills seemed to grow in size, beginning to tower above them as Sally-Anne made a gentle gliding turn into a arrow valley. She had no air-speed indicator, so she was now flying by the seat of her pants, holding up the nose to bleed off speed. "Through the hazy smear of the windshield Craig saw the loom of trees.

ered. "Keep "Doors unlocked and open!" Sally-Anne Ord your straps fastened until we stop rolling, then get out as fast as you can, and run likea pack of long thin dogs!" She pulled UP the nose, the Cessna stalled and the nose dropped again likea stone, but she had judged it to a could drop through the horizon micro-second, for before it A she hit the trees. The wings were plucked out of the t ain st their shoulder-straps Cessna, and they were hurled ag with a force that grazed away the skin and bruised the f their speed flesh. But even though the impact took most o off, the dismembered carca.s.s of the aircraft went slithering They were slammed from side and banging into the forest to side and shaken in their seats, the fuselage slewing violently and wrapping sideways around the base of another tree and coming, at last, to rest.

"Out! yelled Sally-Anne. "I can smell gas! Get out and rum" The open doors had been ripped away from their hinges, and they flung off their seat-belts and tumbled out onto the rocky ground, and they ran.

Craig caught up with Sally-Anne. The scarf had come off her head and her long dark tresses streamed behind her.

He reached out and put an arm around her shoulders, guided her towards the lip of a dry ravine and they leaped into it and crouched panting on the sandy bottom, clinging to each other.

"Is she going to flame out? "Sally-Anne gasped.

"Wait for it." He held her, and they tensed themselves for the whooshing detonation of leaking gasoline, and the explosion of the main tanks.

Nothing happened, and the silence of the bush settled over them, so they spoke in awed whispers.

"You fly like an angel, "he said.

"An angel with broken wings." They waited another minute.

"By the way, "he whispered, "what the h.e.l.l is a long thin dog?"

"A.

greyhound," she giggled with reaction from fear. "A dachshund is a long short dog." And he found he was giggling with her as they hugged each other.

"Take a look." She was still laughing nervously. They sto ad up cautiously, and'eered over the rim of the ravine.

The fuselage was crashed and the metal skin of the Cessna had crumpled like aluminium foil, but there was no fire.

They climbed out of the ravine.

"Sam! Craig called. "Sarah!" The two of them stood up from where they had taken cover at the foot of the rocky side of the valley.

"Are you all right?" All four of them were shaken and bruised, Sarah had a bloodied nose and a scratch on her cheek but none of them had been seriously hurt.

"What the h.e.l.l do we do now?" Craig asked, and they stood in a huddle and looked at each other helplessly.

hey ransacked the shattered carca.s.s of the Cessna the toolbox, the first, aid kit, the survival kit with the flashlight, a five-litre aluminium water the, thermal blankets and malt tablets, the pistol, the ho AK 47 rifle and ammunition, the map-case, and Craig unscrewed the compa.s.s from the roof of the cabin. Then they worked for an hour trying to hide all traces of the crash from a searching aircraft. Between them Tungata and Craig dragged the severed wing sections into the ravine and covered them with dried brush. They could not move the fuselage and engine section, but they heaped more branches and brush oven it.

they worked, they heard the sound of an Twice while aircraft in the distance. The resonant throb of twin engines was unmistakable.

"The Dakota," Sally Anne said.

"They are searching for us."

"They can't know that we are down," Sally-Anne protested.

they must know that we took a "No, not for certain, but t realize that real beating," Craig pointed out. "They mus there is a good chance that we are down. They will t the area, and question probably send in foot patrols to scou the villagers."

"The sooner we get out of here-"

"Which way?" rah joined the discussion "May I suggest something?" So deferentially. "We need food and a guide. I think I can lead us from here to my father's village. He will hide us until we have decided what we are going to do, until we are ready to go." Craig looked at Tungata.

"Makes sense any objections, Sam? Okay, let's do it." Before they left the site of the crash, Craig took Sally Anne aside.

Do you feel sad? It was a beautiful aircraft."

"I don't get sentimental over machinery." She shook her head. "Once it was a great little kite, but it's b.u.g.g.e.red and bent now. I save my sentiments for things that are more cuddly," and she squeezed his hand. "Time to move on, darling." Craig carried the rifle and pointed for them, keeping half a mile ahead and marking the trail. Tungata, lacking stamina, took the drag, with the two girls in the centre.

That evening they dug for water in a dry riverbed and sucked a malt tablet before they rolled into the thermal foil survival blankets.

The girls took the first two sentry goes, while Tungata and Craig spun a coin for the more arduous later watches.

Early the next morning, Craig cut a well-used footpath, and when Sarah came up she recognized it immediately.

Two hours later they were in the cultivated valley below Vusamanzi's hilltop village and while the rest of the party took cover in the standing maize, Sarah climbed up to find her father. When she returned an hour later the old witch doctor was with her.

He came directl u for ata and went down on his arthritically swoIIe'nY1fee'sb7 e him, and he took one of Tungata's feet and placed it upon his silver pate. "Son of kings, I see you," he greeted him. "Sprig of great Mzilikazi, branch of mighty Kurnalo, I am your slave." "Stand up, old man," Tungata lifted him up, and used the respectful term kehla, honoured elder.

"Forgive me that I do not offer refreshment, Vusamanzi apologized, 'but it is not safe here. The Shana soldiers are everywhere. I must lead you to a safe place, and then you can rest and refresh yourselves.

Follow me." He set off at a remarkable pace on his skinny old legs, and they had to lengthen their stride to hold him in view.

They walked for two hours by Craig's wrist-watch, the last hour through dense Thorn thicket and broken to ground. There was no defined footpath, and the heated hush of the bush and the claustrophobic crowding in of the hills was enervating and oppressive.

"I do not like this place," Tungata told Craig softly.

"There are no birds, no animals, there is a feeling here of evil no, not evil, but of mystery and of menace." Craig looked about him. The rocks had the blasted look of slag from the iron furnace and the trees were deformed and crooked, black as charcoal against the sun and leprous silver when the sun's rays struck them full on. Their branches were bearded with trailing lichens, the sickly green of chlorine gas. And Tungata was correct, there were no bird sounds, no rustles of small animals in the undergrowth. Suddenly Craig felt chilled and he shivered in th, sunlight.

"You feel it also," said Tungata, and as he spoke the old man disappeared abruptly, as though he had been swallowed by the black and blasted rock. Craig hurried forward, suppressing a shudder of superst.i.tious dread. He teacher the spot where Vusamanzi had disappeared and looked around, but there was no sign of the old man.