length above his head. The loose rock was treacherous, and gave way
under them when they tried to scramble out of the water to search for
the other members of the caravan.
They found the bodies of two of the monks, both of them crushed and
half-buried. They did not even attempt to dig them free. One of the
mules lay with one leg in the air and the rest of its body completely
covered with broken rock. The pack that it had carried had burst open
and the contents were scattered about. The rolled skin and trophies of
the dik-dik had been churned into the muck. Nicholas rescued them and
strapped them on to his burn-bag.
'More to carry,'Royan warned him.
'Only a pound or two, but worth it,' he replied.
They made their way towards the point below the itail where they had
last seen Tamre and Aly. But though they searched for almost an hour
they found no sign of either of them. The slope above them was
devastated: raw ravaged earth, great rocks shattered, bushes and trees
uprooted and smashed to kindling.
Royan climbed as high as her injured leg enabled her, then cupped her
hands around her mbuth and shouted, 'Tamre I Tamre! Tamre!' The echoes
took her cry and flung it from' all to valley wall.
'I think he is done for. The poor little devil has been buried,'
Nicholas called up to her. 'We have been at it an hour now. We cannot
afford more time, if we are to get out ourselves. We will have to leave
him.'
She ignored him and worked her way along the rockslide, loose scree
rolling under her feet, and he could see that the knee was giving her
pain.
'Tamre! Answer me,' she called in Arabic. 'Tamre!
Where are you?'
'Royan! That's enough. You are going to damage that knee even more. You
are putting both of us at risk now.
Give it up!'
At that moment they both heard a soft groan from higher up the slope.
Royan scrambled up towards the sound, slipping and sliding back almost
as far as she climbed, but at last she gave a cry of horror. Nicholas
dumped his pack and went up after her. When he reached her side, he too
dropped to his knees.
Tam-re was pinned down in the rubble. His face was barely recognizable.
It was torn and lacerated, with half the skin ripped off. Royan had
lifted his head into her lap, and was using her sleeve to wipe the filth
out of his nostrils to allow him to breathe more freely. Blood was
oozing from the corner of his mouth, and when he groaned again it welled
up in a fresh flood. Royan dabbed at it, smearing it across his chin.
His lower body was buried, and Nicholas tried to clear the broken rock;
but almost immediately he realized the futility of it. A lump of raw
rock the size of a billiard table lay across him. It weighed many tons,
and must certainly have crushed his spine and pelvis. No single man
would be able to move that massive weight unaided. Even if it were
ossible, the grinding action of any movement would inevitably aggravate
the terrible injuries that Tamre had already sustained.
