hundreds of the escapees from the camp had already been recaptured. 'The girls had seen them being transp reported in heavy trucks, naked and chained together.
As far as vusamanzi knew, the Shana had not yet discovered the wrecked Cessna, but it was still extremely dangerous, and Vusamanzi had ordered the girls to impress upon them they must remain in the cavern. He would come to them in person when he judged it safe to do so.
This news depressed them all and it took all Craig's best storytelling and clowning to lighten the mood in the cavern. He turned their attention back to their perennially favourite topic, the tomb of Lobengula and the vast fortune they liked to believe it contained. They had already discussed in detail the equipment that would be needed to enable a team of divers to open the tomb and reach the burial area, and now Sally-Anne asked Tungata, 'Tell us, Sam, if there were a treasure, and if you could reach it, and if it were as rich as we hope, how would you use it?' 11 think it would have to be treated as belonging to the Matabele people. It would have to be placed in trust and used for their benefit, firstly to procure for them a better political dispensation. To be pragmatic, a negotiator with that sort of financial clout behind him would find it easier to get the attention of the British Foreign Office and the American State Department. He could prevail upon them to intervene. The government in Harare would have to take them seriously, options which are at present closed to us would become accessible.'
'After that, it would finance all sorts of social programmes education, health, the forwarding of women's rights,' Sarah said, for the moment her timidity put aside.
'You would use it to make land-purchases to add to the existing tribal trust lands Craig added, 'financial assistance to the peasant farmers, aid for tractors and machinery, blood, stock improvement programmes.'
'Craig,' Sally-Anne laid her hand on his good leg, 'isn't there any way at all to Ach the burial chamber? Couldn't YOU try another dive?'O 'My precious girl, for the hundredth time, let me explain that I could probably move a single rock with each dive, and twenty dives would kill me.' oh God, it's so frustrating!' Sally-Anne jumped up and began pacing up and down between them and the fire. 'I feel so helpless. If we don't do something, I'm going to go mad. I feel as though I am suffocating I need a good breath of oxygen. Can't we just go outside for a few minutes?' And then immediately, she answered herself.
'That just isn't on, I know. Forgive me. I'm being silly.' She looked at her wristwatch. 'My God, I've lost all track of time, do you realize it's after midnight already?' Craig and Sally- Anne lay on their mattress of cut grass and tanned skins, holding each other close and whispering with their lips touching each other's ears so as not to disturb the other pair at their end of the cavern.
'I am ashamed of my part in having him imprisoned. He is such a marvelous man, darling, sometimes I feel so humble when I listen to him.' 'He might just make it to greatness,' Craig agreed.
Coming back here to free him may be the most important thing that you and I ever do in our lives.'
'If we get away with it,' Craig qualified.
'There must be some justice in this naughty world.'
'It's a nice thought.'
'Kiss me goodnight, Craig.' Craig loved to listen to her sleeping, the gentle sound of her breathing, and to feel the total relaxation of her body against his, with only the occasional little snuggling movement in his arms, but tonight he could not follow her into sleep.
Something was snagged in his subconscious likea burr in his sock, and the longer he lay, the fiercer became its irritation. Something somebody had said that evening, he figured it that far, but every time it started to rise to the he tried too hard and it sank away surface of his mind, again. At last he resorted to the old trick of emptying his mind, imagining a wastepaper-basket, and as each unbidden thought came, he tore it in half, crumpled it, and dropped it into the imaginary basket.
'Christ!' he said loudly, and sat bolt upright. Sally-Anne came up beside him, pushing the hair was jolted awake and out of her eyes, and mumbling drowsily.
'What is it?'Tungata called across the cavern.
'Oxygen!' cried Craig. Sally-Anne had said, 'I am suffocating I need a good breath of oxygen.'
'I don't understand,' Sally' Anne mumbled, still more asleep than awake.
'Darling, wake up! Come on!' He shook her gently.
'Oxygen! The Cessna is equipped for high-altitude flight, isn't it?'
'Oh sweet heavens,' she stared at him. 'Why didn't we think of it before?'
'Life-jackets do you have them?'
'Yes. When I was doing the flamingo survey over Lake Tanganyika, I had to have them installed. They are under the seat cushions.'
'And the oxygen system, is it a recycling circuit?'
'Yes.'
'Pupho!' Tungata had lit the lantern and carried it across to them with Sarah naked and unsteady on her feet trailing behind him likea sleepy puppy. 'Tell us, Pupho, what is happening?'
'Sam, you beauty,' Craig grinned at him, as he reached for his pants. 'You and rare going for a little walk.'
'Now?'
'Now, while it is still dark.' here was e oug moon to light their way as far as 'i Vusaman s 'Village. They bypassed the hilltop, not wanting to alarm the old man. A village dog yapped at them, but they found the footpath and hurried along it.
Morning found them still on the footpath.
Twice they were forced to take cover. The first time was when they almost ran head-on into a patrol of camouflage clad Shana troopers.
Tungata, who was on point, warned Craig with the hand-signal for dire danger. They lay in arM
Ir F
thick yellow stand of elephant grass beside the path and watched them go padding silently past. Afterwards, Craig found that his heart was racing and his hands shaking.
'I'm getting too old for this, 'he whispered.
'Me too,' Tungata agreed.
The second time they were warned by the whacking beat of helicopter rotors, and they dived into the ravine beside the path. The ungainly machine dragon-flyed down the far crest of the valley, with a machine-gunner in the fuselage port and the helmeted heads of an assault squad popping up behind him like poisonous green toadstools.
The helicopter passed swiftly and did not return.
They overran the spot where they had originally intersected the footpath, and had to back-track for almost a mile, so it was late afternoon when they approached the wreck site.
They closed in with elaborate caution, circling the area and casting for in going spoor, checking with infinite patience that the wreck had not been discovered and staked, out Finally, when they walked up, they discovered that it was undisturbed and exactly as they had left it.
Tungata climbed back up the side of the valley, and stood guard with the AK 47, while Craig began stripping the equipment they had come for. The four inflatable lifejackets were under the seats, as Sally-Anne had told him.
They were of excellent quality, impregnated nylon, each with a carbon dioxide cartridge for inflation and a non return valve on the mouthpiece for topping up. Attached to the bosom cushions were a whistle and blessings upon the manufacturer a light globe powered by a long-life battery. Under the pilot seat was a thousand more blessings a repair kit for the jackets, with scissors and scraper and two tubes of epoxy cement.
The steel oxygen bottles were bolted into a rack behind the rear bulkhead of the passenger compartment. There were three of them, each of two-litre capacity. From them flexible plastic tubing carried along behind the panelling to each seat, and terminated in a face-mask with two builtin valves. The user inhaled pure oxygen and exhaled a mixture of unused oxygen, water vapour and carbon dioxide. This was passed through the exit valve and ran through the two metal canisters under the floorboards. The first canister contained silica gel which removed the water vapour, the second canister was packed with soda lime which removed the carbon dioxide, and the purified oxygen was cycled back to the face-masks. When the pressure of pure oxygen in the system fell to that of ambient atmosphere, it was automatically supplemented from the three steel bottles. The flexible tubing was fitted with top-quality aluminium couplings, T-pieces and bends, all of the bayonet-fitting type.
Working as carefully as time would permit, Craig stripped out the system and d-len converted the heavy duty canvas seat-covers into carry bags. He packed the salvaged equipment into them, making up two heavy bundles.
It was dark by the time that he whistled Tungata down from the hillside. Each, of them shouldered a bundle and they started back.
When they intersected the footpath, they spent nearly half an hour sweeping their tracks, and hiding any sign of their detour from the path.
'You think it will hold good in daylight?' Craig said doubtfully. 'We don't want to signpost the wreck.'
'It's the best we c.aA do.' They stepped it out on the path, pushing hard, and despite their heavy, uncomfortable packs, they shaved an hour off their return time and reached the cavern just after dawn.
Sally-Anne said nothing when Craig stepped into the
