The arrow, aimed at his chest, hit Chetti Singh in the palm of his open hand and stuck firmly, its point buried between the bones of the first and second fingers.
Chetti Singh stared at it. Now we are both dead, said Pirri softly, and vanished into the forest.
Chetti Singh stared in horror at the arrow in his palm. The flesh around it was already stained purple by the poison. Then the pain began. It was stronger than anything that Chetti Singh had ever imagined. It was fire in his blood, he could feel it running up his arm into his chest. The pain was so terrible that for a long anguished moment it took his breath away and he could not scream.
Then he found his voice and the sound of his agony rang through the trees. Pirri paused for a while to listen to it. Only when the forest was silent again did he move on. We are ready, Daniel said quietly, but his voice carried to every man seated in the headquarters hut at Gondola.
They were the same men who had gathered here a month ago, and yet they were different.
There was an air of confidence and determination about them that had not been there before.
Daniel had spoken to his Matabele instructors before the meeting.
They were pleased. No man had been dropped from the training camps for any reason except sickness or injury.
They are amabutho now, Morgan Tembi had told Daniel. They are warriors now. You have done well, Daniel told them. You can be proud of what you have achieved in so short a time. He turned to the blackboard on the thatched wall behind him and pulled aside the cloth that had covered it.
The board was covered with diagrams and schedules. This, gentlemen, is our order of battle, Daniel said. We will go over it, not once but until every one of you can recite it in your sleep, he warned them.
Here are your four cadres, each of two hundred and fifty men. Each cadre is assigned different targets and objectives, the main army barracks, the airfield, the harbour, the labour camps. . . Daniel worked down the list. Now, most important of all, the radio and television studio in Kahali. Taffari's security forces are good.
Even with initial surprise we cannot hope to hold all our objectives longer than the first few hours, not without popular support. We have to secure the studio. President Omeru will be moved to the capital well ahead of time and will be in hiding in the old quarter, ready to come out and broadcast an appeal to the people. As soon as the populace sees him on television and realises that he is alive and leading the rising, we can expect every man and woman to join us. They will come out on to the streets and join the battle. Taffari's storm-troopers may be better armed than we are, but we will crush them by sheer weight of numbers.
However, there is one other condition that we have to fulfil in order to ensure success. We have to take out Taffari himself within the first hour. We have to crush the head of the snake.
Without Taffari they will collapse. There is nobody to replace him.
Taffari himself has seen to that. He has murdered all possible rivals.
He is a one-man band, but we have to get him with the first surprise stroke. That won't be so easy. Patrick Omeru came to his feet. He seems to have a kind of sixth sense. He has already survived two assassination attempts in the short time he has been in power. They are beginning to say he is using witchcraft, like Idi Amin-Sit down, Patrick, Daniel interrupted him sharply. Witchcraft was a dangerous word to use, even to a group of educated and intelligent men such as this.
They were still African, and witchcraft was rooted in the African soil.
Taffari is a cunning swine. We all know that. He seldom sticks to any routine. He changes plans at the very last moment.
He cancels appointments without reason and he sleeps at the home of a different wife each night, in random order. He's cunning, but he is no wizard. He'll bleed good red blood, I promise you that. They cheered him for that and the mood of the gathering improved. They were confident and eager again.
However, there is one routine that Taffari has established.
He visits the mining operation of Wengu at least once a month.
He likes to see his treasure coming out of the earth. At Wengu he is isolated. It is the one place in the entire country where he is most vulnerable. Daniel paused and looked down at them. We are fortunate to have some good intelligence from Major Fashoda. He indicated the Hita officer on the dais beside him. As you all know, Major Fashoda is the transport officer on Taffari's staff. He is the man responsible for arranging Taffari's personal transport. Taffari always uses a Puma helicopter to visit Wengu. He has ordered a Puma to stand by for Monday the 14th. This indicates a high probability that his next inspection tour to Wengu will be on that date. It gives us five days to make our final preparations. Ning Cheng Gong sat beside President Taffari on the padded bench in the fuselage of the airforce Puma helicopter. Through the open hatch he could see the green blur of the treetops as the Puma sped low across the forest. The wind buffeted them and it was noisy in the cabin. They had to raise their voices and shout to be heard. What news of Chetti Singh? Ephrem Taffari shouted, his mouth close to Cheng's ear. Nothing, Cheng shouted back. We found his Landrover, but no sign of him. It has been two weeks now. He must have died in the forest, as Armstrong did. He was a good man, Taffari said.
He knew how to get work out of the convict labour. He was good at keeping costs down. Yes, Cheng agreed. He will be very hard to replace. He spoke the language. He understood Africa. He understood.
.
. Cheng bit his lip. He had been on the point of using a derogatory term for black people. He understood the system, he ended lamely.
Even in the short time since his disappearance there has been a marked drop in production and profits. I'm working on it, Cheng assured him.
I have some good men coming to replace him. Mining men from South Africa, as good as Chetti Singh. They also know how to get the most work out of these people. Taffari nodded and stood up. He made his way down the length of the cabin to speak to his companion.
As usual, Taffari was travelling with a woman. His latest flame was a tall Hita girl, a blues singer in a night club in Kahali. She had a face like a black Nefertiti. Taffari was also accompanied by a detachment of his presidential guard. Twenty crack paratroopers under the command of Major Kajo. Kajo had received promotion after the disappearance of Bonny Mahon. Taffari appreciated loyalty and tact, and Kajo was a man on the way up.
Cheng had come to detest these presidential inspection tours of the mining and logging concessions. He hated low-flying in one of the ancient Pumas of the Ubomo airforce. The helicopter pilots were notorious daredevils.
