The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 79

"Perhaps," Peter agreed. "But I don't think so. The trackers have examined the sign, and this is their reconstruction. After the crash twelve days ago, four people left the site, two of them women, and one of the men with an unbalanced gait. Then within the last thirty-six hours, two men returned to the wreck. They are certain it was the same two the boot prints match, and one of them has the same favour to his left leg." Bukharin nodded.

"On the second visit the wreck was stripped of much loose equipment. The two men left the area carrying heavy packs and joined the footpath that crossed the head of the valley about six miles -from.

here. There the tracks have been confused and covered by other traffic."

"I see," Bukharin was watching him. "Now tell me your other conclusions."

"There are two black and two white persons. With my own eyes I saw them at. Tuti airstrip. The one black is undoubtedly Minister Tdhgata Zebiwe - I recognized him "Wishful thinking? He is your one last hope of making good our bargain."

"I would know that man anywhere."

"Even from an aircraft?"

"Even then."

"Go on," Bukharin invited.

"The other black person I did not recognize. Nor did I get a good enough view to positively identify either of the whites, but the pilot is almost certainly an American OIL Sk woman named Jay. Although the aircraft belongs to the World Wildlife Trust, she had the use of it. The other white is probably her lover, a British writer of sensational fiction, who has an artificial leg, accounting for the unbalanced tracks. These three are unimportant and expendable. The only one of importance is Zebiwe. And now we know that he is still alive."

"We also know that he has eluded you, my dear General," Bukharin pointed out.

J do not think he will continue to do so much longer." Peter Fungabera turned to the sergeant who was standing attentively behind him. "You have done well. Very well, so far."

"Mambo!" "I believe that this Matabele dog and his white friends are being hidden and fed by the local people."

"Mambo!"

"We will question them."

"Mambo!"

"We will start with the nearest village, which is it?"

"The village of Vusamanzi lies beyond this valley and the next."

"You will move in and surround it. n.o.body must leave or escape, not a goat, not a child." "Mambo!"

"When you have secured the village, I will come to supervise the interrogation." raig and Tungata made three climbs down to Lobengula's pool at the foot of the grand gallery, carrying the makeshift diving gear, the spare oxygen bottles, the underwater lamps that Craig had made up with the batteries and globes scavenged from the life, jackets, firewood and fur blankets to warm Craig after each dive, and provisions to avoid the necessity of climbing back to the upper cavern for meals.

After discussion it was agreed that the two girls would take turns at remaining in the upper cavern, to meet the messengers from Vusamanzi's village and to carry down a warning to the others in the event of a Shana patrol stumbling on the entrance.

Before testing the diving equipment, Craig and Tungata made a careful survey of the route down to the pool, choosing the positions on which they would fall back if they were ever forced to defend the inner recesses of the cave system against a Shana attack. Although neither of them mentioned it, they were both acutely aware that there was no final position, no ultimate escape hole from the mountain depths, and that any defence must end at the icy waters of the pool.

Tungata made the only open acknowledgement of this when, in plain sight of the other three, he took four 7.62 bullets for the Tokarev pistol, wrapped them in a sc.r.a.p of goat-skin, and wedged them in a crack in the limestone wall beside the pool. The -two girls watched him with sickly fascination, and though Craig made a show of checking his breathing equipment, they all understood. This was the final a.s.surance against torture and slow mutilation, one bullet for each of them.

"Okay!" Craig's voice was overloud for the silence of the gallery.

"I'm going to see h*w efficiently this contraption is going to drown me." Tungata lifted the set and Craig knelt and slipped his head through the yoke of the life-jacket. Sally' Anne and Sarah settled the bottle and canisters on his back, and then strapped them in place with strips of canvas cut from the seat covers. Craig checked the knots. If the set ever failed, he must be able to jettison it in a hurry.

At last he hopped into the pool, shuddered at the cold as he fitted the mask over his mouth and nose, secured the strap behind his head and half-filled his chest bag with oxygen. He gave the three on the bank a thumbsup sign, and lowered himself below the surface.

As he had antic.i.p.ated, buoyancy was his first problem.

The pull of the bag on his chest rolled him onto his back likea dead fish, and with the thrust of his one leg, he was unable to right himself. He paddled back to the slab, and began the irksome business of experimenting with rock weights to adjust his att.i.tude in the water.

In the end he found that the only way to do it was to hold an excessively heavy stone and let it draw him down headfirst. However, as soon as he released the stone, he was borne irresistibly upwards.

"At least the joints are watertight," he told them when he surfaced again. "And I'm getting oxygen. There is a lot of water leaking in around the edges of the mask, but I can purge that in the usual way." He demonstrated the trick of holding the mask at the top and forcing the acc.u.mulated water out of the bottom with a sharp exhalation of breath.

"When are you going to go for the wall?"

"I guess I'm as ready now as I'll ever be," Craig admitted reluctantly.

"V* ou must understand that I wish to be as a father to you," Peter Fungabera smiled gently. "I look upon you as my children."

"I.

can understand this Shana chattering as little as I can the barking of baboons from the hilltops Vusamanzi replied courteously, and Peter Fungabera made a gesture of irritation as he turned to his sergeant.

"Where is that translator?"

"He will be here very soon, mambo." Tapping his swagger-stick against his thigh, Peter Fungabera walked slowly down the ragged rank of villagers that his troopers had gathered in from their hoeing on the maize fields and had flushed from the huts.

Apart from the old man, they were all women and children. Some of the women were as ancient as the witch-doctor, with white woolly pates and wizened dugs hanging to their waists, others were still capable of child-bearing with fat infants strapped to their backs, or standing naked at their knees; snot had dried white around the toddlers" nostrils and flies crawled unnoticed on their lips and at the corners of their eyes, and they stared up at Peter as he pa.s.sed with fathomless eyes. There were still younger women with firm full b.r.e.a.s.t.s and glossy skin, pre-p.u.b.escent girls and uncirc.u.mcised boys. Peter Fungabera smiled kindly at them, but they stared back at him without expression.

"My Matabele puppies, we will hear you yap a little before this day is done," he promised softly, and turned at the end of the line. He walked back slowly to where the Russian waited in the shade of one of the huts.

"You will get nothing qut of the old one." Bukharin took the ebony cigarette-holder from between his teeth and coughed softly, covering his mouth with his hand. "He is dried up, beyond pain, beyond suffering. Look at his eyes.

Fanatic."

"I agree, these sangoma are capable of self-hypnosis, he will be impervious to pairWPeter Fungabera shot back the cuff of his battle-sino and glanced impatiently at his watch. "Where is that translator?" It was another hour before the Matabele trusty from the rehabilitation centre was hustled up the path from the valley. He fell on his knees before Peter Fungabera, blubbering and holding up his manacled hands.

"Get up!" Then, to the sergeant, "Remove his manacles.

Bring the old man here." Vusamanzi was led into the centre of the village square.

"Tell him I am his father," Fungabera ordered.

"Mambo, he replies that his father was a man, not a hyena."

"Tell him that although I cherish him and all his people, I am displeased with him."

"Mambo, he replies that if he has made Your Honour unhappy, then he is well content."

"Tell him he has tied to my men."

"Mambo, he hopes for the opportunity to do so again."