barbed viciously and ground to a needle point, and poison smeared
thickly between the barbs.
man, look at me shiver,' grunted Ruffy and the sweat greased down his
jowls and dripped from his chin.
Long before they reached the access to the bridge the stench of
putrefaction crept out to meet them. In Bruce's mind every smell had its
own colour, and this one was green, the same green as the sheen of
putrefaction on rotting meat. The stench was so heavy he could almost
feel it bearing down on them, choking in his throat and coating his
tongue and the roof of his mouth with the oily oversweetness.
'No doubt what that is!' Ruffy spat, trying to get the taste out of his
mouth.
'Where are they?' gagged Bruce, starting to pant from the heat and the
effort of breathing the fouled air.
They reached the bank and Bruce's question was answered as they looked
down on to the narrow beach.
There were the black remains of a dozen cooking fires along the water's
edge, and closer to the high bank were two crude structures of poles.
For a moment their purpose puzzled Bruce and then he realized what they
were. He had seen those crosspieces suspended between two uprights often
before in hunting camps throughout Africa. They were paunching racks! At
intervals along the crosspieces were the hark ropes that had been used
to string up the game, heels first, with head and forelegs dangling and
belly bulging forward so that at the long abdominal stroke of the knife
the viscera would drop out easily.
But the game they had butchered on these racks were men, his men.
He counted the hanging ropes. There were ten of them, so no one had
escaped.
'Cover me, Ruffy. I'm going down to have a look.' It was a penance Bruce
was imposing upon himself. They were his men, and he had left them
there.
'Okay, boss.' Bruce clambered down the well-defined path to the beach.
Now the smell was almost unbearable and he found the source of
it. Between the racks lay a dark shapeless mass. It moved with flies;
its surface moved, trembled, crawled with flies. Suddenly, humming, they
lifted in a cloud from the pile of human debris, and then settled once
more upon it.
A single fly buzzed round Bruce's head and then settled on his hand.
Metallic blue body, wings cocked back, it crouched on his skin and
gleefully rubbed its front legs together. Bruce's throat and stomach
convulsed as he began to retch. He struck at the fly and it
darted away.
There were bones scattered round the cooking fires and a skull lay near
his feet, split open to yield its contents.
Another spasm took Bruce and this time the vomit came up into his mouth,
acid and warm. He swallowed it, turned away and scrambled up the bank to
where Ruffy waited. He stood there gasping, suppressing his nausea until
at last he could speak.
'All right, that's all I wanted to know,' and he led the way back to the
circle of vehicles.
