The Sunbird

suggested.

‘Set it out for us. Lo,’ I agreed.

‘I will negotiate with the Botswana Government. I can put a little leverage on them. We’ll have to have a formal agreement drawn up, probably split any finds fifty-fifty, they’ll have to guarantee us access and exclusive rights. That sort of thing.’

‘Good. That’s certainly your bag of tricks, Lo.’

‘Knowing you, Benjamin, you have a list of your requirements, the men you want, equipment - am I right?’

I laughed and unbuttoned my top pocket. ‘As a matter of fact—’ I admitted as I handed him three foolscap sheets. He glanced over them quickly.

‘Very Spartan, Ben,’ he congratulated me. ‘But I think we can go in a bit bigger than this. I’ll want at least a rough landing-strip here to start with, something to handle a Dakota. The hot weather is coming. You’ll die living out under canvas. We’ll need solid accommodation, also office and storage space with air-conditioning. That means a generator for lighting and to pump water down from the pool.’

‘No one can ever accuse you of being half-arsed, Lo,’ I told him, and we all laughed. Sally refilled my glass. I was jubilant and mightily pleased with myself that evening. I had much to be proud of, ferreting out a secret so well hidden for millennia, and Louren was going to back me all the way, partner. The whisky went down my throat like water.

I used to drink a lot of whisky. It was a way of forgetting certain things and making others easier to accept. Then about six years ago I found I hadn’t worked on a book for a year, that my memory and intellect were blurry and unreliable, and my hands shook in the morning. I still drink a tot or two of an evening, and occasionally I take on a full blast of the stuff. But now I drink because I am happy, not because I am sad.

‘Come on, Ben. Tonight we’ve got something to celebrate,’ Sally laughed and poured me another heavy portion.

‘Wow! Gently, Doctor,’ I protested weakly, but that night I got drunk, pleasantly, contentedly, floating drunk. With dignity I refused Louren’s offer of assistance and made my own way to the tent wherein Sally had discreetly segregated me since Louren’s arrival. I fell on top of my bed fully clothed and went to sleep. I half woke when Louren came in and climbed into his bed across the tent. I remember opening one eye and seeing the glow of the waning moon through the fly of the tent - or was it the first glow of dawn? It didn’t seem important then.

The personnel for the project was the most important consideration, and here I was lucky. Peter Willcox was due for his sabbatical leave from Cape Town University. I flew down to see him, and in six hours convinced him that he wouldn’t enjoy the fleshpots of Europe at all. Heather, his wife, was a little harder to sway, until I showed her the photographs of the white king. Like Sally, rock art is one of her big things.

They were good people to have on a dig. We had been together on the excavation of the Slangkop caves. They were both in their thirties: he a little paunchy and balding with steel-rimmed spectacles and trousers always on the point of falling down. He had to keep tugging at the waistband. She was thin and angular, with a wide laughing mouth and a snub, heavily freckled nose They were childless, cheerful, knowledgeable and hard-working. Peter plays a very jazzy accordion and Heather has a voice that harmonizes well with mine.

Peter introduced me to two of his postgraduate students whom he recommended without reservation. I was startled at my first meeting with them. Ral Davidson was a young man of twenty-one - although the fact that he was a man was not immediately obvious. However, Peter assured me that beneath all the untidy hair lurked a promising young archaeologist. His fiancee was an intense bespectacled young woman, who had graduated at the head of her year. Although she was depressingly plain and I prefer my women beautiful, Leslie Johns endeared herself to me immediately by whispering breathlessly, ‘Dr Kazin, I think your book, Ancient Africa, is the most exciting thing I’ve ever read.’

This display of good taste secured the job for them.

Peter Larkin found me forty-six African labourers from the southern territories of Botswana, who had never heard of the Hills of Blood nor of any curse upon them.

My only disappointment was with Timothy Mageba. I spent five days at the Institute in Johannesburg on my way back from Cape Town, mostly trying to convince Timothy that I needed him at the Hills of Blood.

‘Machane,’ he said, ‘there is work here that no one else can do.’ I was to remember those words later. ‘Where you are going there is work that many men are capable of. You have these men and women already, specialists all of them. You do not need me.’

‘Please, Timothy. It would be for six months or so. Your work here can wait.’

He shook his head vehemently, but I hurried on.

‘I really want you, and need you. There are things that you alone can explain. Timothy, there are over fifteen thousand square feet of paintings on the rocks. Much of it is symbol, stylized emblems which only you—’

‘Dr Kazin, you could send me copies of them. I can still give you my interpretation.’ Timothy switched to English, which with him was always a discouraging sign. ‘I hope you don’t insist that I leave the Institute now. My assistants cannot work without my direction.’

We stared at each other for a few seconds. It was a deadlock. I could order him to come, but an unwilling helper is worse than none at all. There was a rebellious, independent spirit smouldering in Timothy’s dark eyes and I knew that there was some deeper reason why he refused to accompany me.

‘Is it—’ I hesitated. I was about to ask him if the ancient curse was the reason for his refusal. It was always disquieting to find superstition influencing an intelligent and well-educated man. I was reluctant to come straight out with it, for even with an African like Timothy the direct question is considered gauche and discourteous.

‘There are always reasons within reasons, Doctor. Please believe me when I tell you it would be better if I did not accompany you this time.’

‘All right, Timothy,’ I agreed with resignation, and stood up. Again we locked glances, and it seemed to me that he was different. The flickering fires burned brighter, and again I felt the stirring of unease, of fear even, deep within me.

‘I promise you, Doctor, that my work here is at a critical stage.’

‘I will be very interested to see it when you are ready, Timothy.’