‘Let us find who has done this thing, Sunbird,’ he whispered, and he led me into the short grass around the camp. He worked quickly, like a gundog.
There were spills of the bright brass cartridge cases scattered on the sandy earth. Shoddily manufactured, and stamped with Chinese characters, hundreds of them. The gunners had fired with childish gusto, pouring a torrent of bullets into the camp. Their boots had left the characteristic chevron-patterned imprints. There seemed to be hundreds of them, for the earth was churned and the grass flattened.
‘They came in the night,’ Xhai explained softly. ‘See! Here is where they waited.’ He pointed to the scuffed places amongst the bushes. ‘There were many of them.’ And he showed both his hands with fingers spread, three times. Thirty of them. A big party. ‘They struck in the dawn. Yesterday at dawn.’ Thirty-two hours ago. They would be miles away now, I realized. When we returned to the encampment the nine bodies were wrapped in canvas and laid out in a neat line, like parcels ready for posting. Four of the troopers were digging a shallow communal grave.
Xhai went to squat beside the line of dead. He was silent now, and the silence was more distressing than his despairing wail. Once he leaned forward and timidly touched one of the green canvas-wrapped bundles. How many of these little men had squatted like this in the sun to mourn the massacre of their tribe, I wondered. It is at times such as this that I hate the savage ferocity of this land of ours. I could not watch Xhai’s grief and I turned away and went to where Louren and MacDonald stood together talking quietly.
‘It’s a big party, Ben,’ Louren greeted me as 1 came up.
‘Xhai says there are thirty of them.’ I told him, and he nodded.
‘Very likely. The inspector feels we should turn back, and I reckon I agree with him.’
MacDonald explained, ‘Should we run into them, they outnumber us heavily, Doctor. These swine are well trained and armed with the most modern weapons. It’s not like a few years ago when they sent in a half-baked rabble. They are really dangerous now, and we aren’t an offensive patrol. I think we must get out as quickly as possible, and call in the helicopters. Once they locate them the Hunter jets will give them a whiff of napalm.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. The ancient workings were no longer important in the face of this horror. I looked across to where the troopers were lifting the bundles down into the grave. Xhai stood watching them. When the grave was filled with loose earth I went across to Xhai and placed an arm around his shoulder.
‘Come, little brother,’ I said and led him to the Land-Rover. The column turned and in the same order made its way back into the south.
The journey slowly developed into a nightmare of tension and straining nerves. The revving and gear-changing that was necessary to negotiate the rough and broken ground broadcast our progress far ahead of us. Every mile there was a location ideal for an ambush, with thick cover pressing in closely on either hand. Our trail was laid clearly, and we must follow it on our return. They would know this and wait for us there. It was possible they carried landmines and we watched anxiously for disturbed earth in the trail ahead. The strain was on all of us. Louren drove in grim silence, with an unlit stub of cigar rolling restlessly in the corner of his mouth.
The trooper beside him rode with the butt of the machine-gun pulled into his shoulder, and occasionally he traversed the heavy weapon experimentally. All our heads moved constantly, swinging slowly from side to side, searching, searching.
‘Have you noticed there is no sign of game, Ben?’ Louren asked suddenly. He was correct. Since leaving the bushman encampment we had seen none of the wild life which had enlivened our outward journey, not even a herd of the dainty brown impala.
‘I don’t like it, Lo.’
‘Join the club,’ Louren grunted.
‘In thirty-two hours the bastards could have moved miles. They could be anywhere.’ I fiddled restlessly with the rate of fire selector on the rifle in my lap. MacDonald had insisted on us taking the spare weapons from two of the troopers on the heavy machine-guns. I was glad of it now. There was much comfort to be drawn from that hunk of wood and steel.
Suddenly the Land-Rover ahead of us skidded to a halt, and Louren slammed on his own brakes and snatched the automatic rifle from the bracket behind him. We sat with our weapons poised, peering into the wilderness of rock and scrub around us. Waiting for the sudden shuddering roar of machine-guns. The slow seconds passed and my own pulse drummed in my ears deafening me.
‘Sorry,’ MacDonald called from up front. ‘False alarm!’
The engines revved, hideously loud in the vast silence of Africa, and we went on.
‘For Christ’s sake stop fiddling with that bloody thing!’ Louren snapped at me with unnecessary violence. I had not realized that I had been clicking the selector of the rifle.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered guiltily. The tension was infectious. Louren’s outburst was a symptom of it, but almost immediately he glanced over his shoulder and grinned apologetically.
‘This is bloody murder.’
It seemed hours later that we crossed a ridge and went twisting down amongst the trees to the pool in the dry water course where we had camped the previous night. MacDonald signalled the column to a halt on the far bank, and he came back to us.
‘We will top up the fuel tanks here, Mr Sturvesant. I’ll see to that. Will you take a party down to the pool and refill the water containers?’
Louren went down the bank with two of the troopers lugging the five-gallon jerry cans while I watched MacDonald begin refuelling. The gasoline fumes swirled like a mirage in the heat, and the smell was biting in my throat. One of the troopers splashed the liquid in a spurt down the side of the lead vehicle and MacDonald reprimanded him sharply.
‘Stay here,’ I told Xhai. ‘Do not move.’ And he nodded at me from the back seat of the Land-Rover.
I left him and followed Louren down to the edge of the pool. It was a tranquil scene, so typical of Africa. Tall reeds languidly drooping their fluffy heads, black mud, pocked with the hooves of a thousand beasts, water green and thick with slime bubbling sulkily with marsh gas, the weaver birds hanging upside down below their swinging basket nests. The two troopers were talking quietly as they filled the jerry cans, Louren standing over them with the
