to do but feel sorry for myself.' The Victoria Falls Hotel is one of those magnificent monuments to the great days of Empire. Its walls are as thick as those of a castle, but painted brilliant white. The floors are of marble, with sweeping staircases and colonnaded porticos, the ceilings are cathedral-high with fancy plaster-work and gently revolving fans. The terraces and lawns stretch down to the very brink of the aby's through which the Zambezi river boils in all its fury and grandeur, Spanning the gorge is the delicate steel tracery of the arched bridge of which Cecil Rhodes ordered, 'I want the spray from the falls to wet my train as it passes on its way to the north.' The spray hangs in a perpetual snowy mantle over the chasm, twisting and folding upon itself as the breeze picks at it, and always there is the muted thunder of falling water like the sound of storm surf heard from afar.
When David Livingstone, the missionary explorer, first stood on the edge of the gorge and looked down into the sombre sunless depths, he said, 'Sights such as these must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.' The Livingstone suite, which looks out upon this view, was named after him.
One of the black porters who carried up their luggage told Janine proudly, 'King Georgey slept here and Missy Elizabeth, who is now the queen, with her sister Margaret when they were little girls.' Roly laughed. 'Hell, what was good enough for King Georgey!' and he grossly overtipped the grinning porters and fired the cork from the bottle of champagne that waited for them in a silver ice-bucket.
They walked hand in hand along the enchanted path beside the Zambezi river, while the timid little spotted bushbuck scuttled away into the tropical undergrowth and the vervet monkeys scolded them from the tree-tops. They ran laughing hand in hand through the rain forests, under the torrential downpour of falling spray, Janine's hair melted down her face, and their sodden clothing clung to their bodies.
When they kissed, standing on the edge of the high cliff, the rock trembled under their feet and the turmoil of air displaced by the volume of tumbling water buffeted them and flung the icy spray into their faces.
They cruised on the placid upper reaches of the river in the sunset, and they chartered a light aircraft to fly over the serpentine coiling and uncoiling gorge in the noon, and Janine clung to Roland in delicious vertigo as they skimmed the rocky lip of the gorge. They danced to the African steel band, under the stars, and the other guests who recognized Roland's uniform watched them with pride and affection.
'One of Ballantyne's Scouts,' they told each other, 'they are very special, the Scouts.' And they sent wine to their table in the manorial dining-room to mark their appreciation.
Roland and Janine lay late in bed in the mornings and had their breakfast sent up to them. They played tennis and Roland lobbed his service and returned to her forehand. They lay in the sunlight beside the Olympic-sized pool and anointed each other with sun cream In their brief bathing suits they were magnificently healthy clean young animals, and so obviously in love that they seemed charmed and set apart. In the evenings they sat under the umbrella spread of the great trees on the terrace and drank Pimms No. I cup, and experienced a marvelous sense of defiance in flaunting themselves to the full view of their mortal enemies on the far side of the gorge.
Then one day at dinner, the manager stopped at their table.
'I understand that you are leaving us tomorrow, Colonel Ballantyne. We shall miss you both.' 'Oh no!' Janine shook her head laughingly. 'We are staying until the twenty-sixth.' 'Tomorrow is the twenty-sixth, Mrs. Ballantyne.' he head porter had all their luggage piled at the hotel entrance and Roland was settling their bill. Janine waited for him under the portico. Suddenly she started as she recognized the battered old open Lan dRover that swung in through the gates, and parked in one of the open slots at the end of the lot.
Her first reaction, as she watched the familiar gawky figure untangle his long legs and flick the hair out of his eyes as he climbed out, was quick anger.
'He's come on purpose,' she thought. 'Just to try and spoil it all.' Craig came ambling towards her with his hands thrust into his pockets, but when he was less than a dozen paces from where she stood, he recognized her and his confusion was obviously unfeigned.
Jan, he blushed furiously. 'Oh my God, I didn't know you'd be here.' She felt her anger recede. 'Hello, Craig dear. No, it was a secret, until now.' 'I'm so dreadfully sorry-' 'Don't be, we are leaving anyway.'
'Sonny boy,' Roland came out of the doorway behind Janine and went to throw a brotherly arm around Craig's shoulders. 'You are ahead of time. How are you?' 'You knew I was coming?' Craig looked even more confused.
'I knew,' Roland admitted, 'but not so soon. You were supposed to report on the twenty- eighth.' 'George gave me a couple of days.' Since that first startled exchange, Craig had not looked at Janine again. 'I thought I would spend them here.' 'Good boy, you will need the rest.
You and I are going to be doing a bit of work together. I tell you what, Sonny, let's have a quick drink. I'll explain it to you some of it anyway.' 'Oh, darling,' Janine cut in swiftly, 'we don't have time. I'll miss the flight.' She could not bear the hurt and confusion in Craig's eyes another moment.
'Darn it, I suppose you are right.' Roland checked his watch.
'It will have to keep until I see you the day after tomorrow, Sonny,' and at that moment the airways' bus drove into the hotel driveway.
Roland and Janine were the only passengers in the mini-bus out to the airport.
'Darling, when will I see you again?' 'Look, I can't say for sure, Bugsy, that depends on so many things.' 'Will you telephone me or write even?' 'You know I can't.' 'I know, but I will be at the flat, just in case.' 'I wish you would go out to live at Queen's Lynn that's where you belong now.' 'My job.' 'The hell with your job. Ballantyne wives don't work.' 'Well, see here, Colonel, sir, this Ballantyne wife is going on working until-' 'Until?' he asked.
'Until you give me something better to do.' 'Like what?' 'Like a baby.' 'Is that a challenge?' 'Oh please, Colonel, sir, do take it as one.' At the airport there was a cheerfully rowdy young crowd, all the men in uniform, come to see the aircraft leave. Most of them knew Roland and they plied him and Janine with drinks. It made the last minutes more bearable. Then suddenly they were standing at the gate and the air hostess was calling for boarding.
'I shall miss you so,'Janine whispered. 'I shall pray for you.'
He kissed her and held her so fiercely that she almost lost her breath.
'I love you, 'Roland said. 'You never said that before.' 'No,' he agreed. 'Not to anybody before. Now, go, woman before I do something stupid.' She was the last in the straggling line of passengers that climbed the boarding-ladder into the elderly Viscount aircraft parked on the hard stand. She wore a white blouse with a daffodil-yellow skirt and flat sandals. There was a matching yellow scarf around her hair and a sling-bag over her shoulder. In the doorway of the aircraft at the top of the boarding-ladder, she looked back, shading her eyes as she searched for Roland, and when she found him she smiled and waved and then stepped through the fuselage door.
The door closed and the boarding-ladder wheeled away. The Rolls- Royce Dart turbo-prop engines whined and fired, and the silver Viscount, with the flying Zimbabwe bird emblem on its tail, taxied downwind to its holding point.
Cleared for take-off, it lumbered back down the runway, and climbed slowly into the air. Roland watched it bank onto its southerly heading for Bulawayo, and then went back into the airport building, showed his pass to the guard at the door and climbed the steps to the control tower.
'What can we do for you, Colonel?' the assistant controller at the flight planning desk greeted him.
'I am expecting a helicopter flight coming in from Wankie to pick me up--' 'Oh, you are Colonel Ballantyne yes, we have your bird on the plot. They were airborne twelve minutes ago. They will be here in an hour and ten minutes.' While they were talking, the flight-controller at the picture windows was speaking quietly with the pilot of the departing Viscount.
'You are cleared to standard departure, unrestricted climb fifteen thousand feet. Over now to Bulawayo approach on '18 comma six.
Goodday!' 'Understand standard departure unrestricted climb to flight level-' The pilot's calm, almost bored voice broke off and the side-band hummed for a few seconds. Then the voice came back crackling with urgency. Roland spun away from the flight planning desk, and strode to the controller's console. He gripped the back of the controller's chair and through the tall windows stared up into the sky.
The high fair-weather clouds were already turning pink with the oncoming sunset, but the Viscount was out of sight, somewhere out there in the south. Roland's face was hard and terrible with anger and fear, as he listened to the pilot's voice grating out of the radio speakers.
'The portable surface-to-air missile-launcher, designated SAM-7, is a crude-looking weapon almost indistinguishable from the bazooka anti-tank rocket launcher of World War II. It looks like a five-foot section of ordinary drainpipe, but the exhaust end is slightly flared into the mouth of a funnel. At the point of balance, there is a shoulder-plate below the barrel and an aiming and igniting device like a small portable AM radio set attached to the upper surface of the barrel.
The weapon is operated by two men. The loader simply places the missile in the exhaust breech of the barrel and, making sure the fins engage the slots, pushes it forward until its rim engages the electrical
