wattle behind them.
'We'll hold it here,' Broster stated with a certainly he did not
feel.
'I hope you're right,' whispered Michael, then suddenly Broster
shouted: 'Oh Christ, look!
For a moment Michael was blinded by the red glare and unsighted by the
smoke. The tire burned unevenly. In places it had driven forward in
great wedge, shaped salients of Ilaine and left behind bays of standing
wattle that were withering and browning in the heat.
From out of one of these bays, into the springy matt of fallen and
trampled branches staggered a man.
'Who the hell started Michael. The man was unrecognizable. His shirt
ripped to shreds by branches that had also scourged his face into a
bloody mask. He floundered forward towards the road, two slack
exhausted paces before he fell and disappeared under the leaves.
'The Nkosikana. ' Mbejane's voice boomed above the thunder of the
flames. 'Dirk! It's Dirk Courtney!' Michael started forward.
The heat was painful in Michael's face. How much more intense must it
be out there where Dirk was lying. As if they knew their prey was
helpless the flames raced forward eagerly, triumphantly, to consume
him. Whoever went in to rob them would meet the full fury of their
advance.
Michael plunged into the brush and ploughed his way towards where Dirk
thrashed feebly, almost encircled by the deadly embrace of the flames,
and the heat reached out ahead of the flames to welcome him.
Mbejane ran beside him.
'Go back,' shouted Mbejane. 'It needs only one of us.'
But Michael did not answer him and they crashed side by side through
the brush, racing the fire with Dirk as the prize.
Mbejane reached him first and lifting him, turned back for the road. He
took one step before he fell and rose again unsteadily from the mass of
branches. Even his vast strength was insufficient in this vacuum of
heat. His mouth was open, a pink cave in the glistening black oval of
his face, wide open and his chest heaved strenuously as he hunted air,
but instead sucked the scalding heat into his throat.
Michael threw himself forward against the heat to reach him It was
almost a solid thing, a barrier of red shimmering glare Michael could
feel it swelling and tightening the skin of his face, and drying the
moisture from his eyeballs.
'I'll take his legs,' he grunted and reached for Dirk. A patch of
brown appeared miraculously on the sleeve of his shirt singed by the
flames as though it had been carelessly ironed Beneath it the heat sunk
a barb of agony into his flesh.
Half a dozen paces together with Dirk between them before Michael
tripped and fell, dragging Mbenjane down with him, They were a long
time rising, all movement slowing down_, when they did they were
surrounded.
long prongs of flame had reached the area of fallen sapling on either
side of them. This had slowed them and diminished their fury. But a
