Blood Safari

hard on my shoulder. A hammer blow of agony went through me. I was rolling and something stabbed me. I continued to roll and hit something else. Finally, I came to a stop, but I couldn’t get up. I had to find Emma. My shoulder must be dislocated. My right arm was all wrong. It was to the front and side of me. I couldn’t breathe, but I tried to get up, bellowed, as I fought to breathe. I stumbled, walked and fell. Got back up on my feet.

There she lay. Deathly still.

‘Emma,’ but I couldn’t get the word out.

She lay on her face. There was blood at the back of her head. Blood on her back. That was the bullet wound. I turned her over with my left hand. She was gone, her body limp. Oh Jesus, please. I pressed my chest to hers, pushed my left hand behind her back, held her to me, and stood up. She hung over my shoulder, lifeless. Was she breathing?

The train had gone.

They were coming.

I had to run. Carrying Emma.

Stumbled. How would I get over the fence? I ran down the other side of the track away from them. I had to get over the wire, but I couldn’t.

Ahead of us there was a gate. Similar to a farm gate, it was an entrance to the service road. We must get over there. I would have to press down on the gate, swing over and jump. I ran, staggering and stumbling. I would have to use my right arm, but would it hold? I pressed my good arm on the gate, swung my legs and Emma over. It was an unreal moment in the air, the arm wasn’t going to hold. It gave and my right hip hit the top of the gate. We toppled over and I landed on my back with Emma on top of me. She was heavy now. I got to my knees and noticed that my left hand was slippery with blood from Emma’s back.

I made it to my feet, my legs wobbling beneath me.

The treeline was twenty metres away. I heard them shouting behind me. We had to reach the trees. My knees complained, my shoulder was all to hell, the pain a wave building to a crest. You must live, Emma le Roux, you must live.

There was a footpath into the trees. A game path. I jogged, staggering, through the mopanes. Don’t follow the path, because that’s what they’ll do. I swerved to the right. I could smell smoke, burning wood. Were there people near by?

Look where you step, I told myself. Don’t make a noise, get deeper into the bush. I had no more breath, my chest was on fire, legs numb, shoulder dislocated. The trees opened up and there were the huts, a humble place, with five women around a fire. Three children playing in the dust, one wrapped up on a woman’s back. Cooking pots. They were stooped over the pots. The women heard me and looked up with wide eyes. They saw a crazy white man with a bleeding woman over his shoulder.

I heard the balaclava calling behind me. Too close. We weren’t going to make it.

I ran towards the middle hut. The door was ajar. I ran in and shoved it closed with my hip. There were two mattresses on the ground and a small table with a radio on it. I laid Emma down and turned to face the door. When the first one came through, I would have to take his gun. With one hand? It wouldn’t work but it was my only option.

I tried to listen. It was deathly quiet. There was a crack in the door. I peered through it and saw them emerge from the bush, surprised by the huts. They halted when they saw the women, swung the guns and said something in a native language. No response. I couldn’t see the women at the fire. Balaclava shouted something, threatening and commanding. A woman’s voice answered him. They stared at her for a minute and ran off.

I listened. A child wailed. Then another. Women’s voices consoled them.

Had the women sent them on a wild-goose chase?

I went over to the mattress. Emma lay too still. I held my ear to her mouth. She was breathing. Jerkily, unevenly. Not good. There was too much blood on her chest, her hair, her neck, her cheek. I had to get her to a hospital.

The door opened. The woman stood there warily.

‘Is hulle weg?’ I asked.

No reaction.

‘Have they gone?’

She said something I couldn’t understand. She looked at Emma.

‘Doctor,’ I said.

‘Doctor,’ she said, and nodded.

‘Quickly.’

Another nod. ‘Quickly.’

She turned and called out to someone with urgency in her voice.

21

His name was Goodwill and he drove like a maniac.

He seemed too young to have a licence. The Toyota Hi Ace was four years old and had 257,000 kilometres on the clock. At first he argued with me. ‘The clinic in Hoedspruit is shit, we must go to Nelspruit. To the hospital.’

‘There’s no time.’

‘There will be time, I will drive fast.’

‘No, please.’

‘No doctor in Hoedspruit, just nurses. They know nothing.’ He turned right at the junction where we had been attacked. ‘Trust me.’

I hesitated.

‘Then you’d better hurry.’

‘Watch me.’ He sped.

I held Emma tightly in my arms in the middle seat and Goodwill drove with his hazard lights tick-tocking, tyres squealing and horn blaring. I felt her jerk, felt the little spasms in her body as life seeped away. I said to her, ‘Emma, you must not die, please, Emma, you must not die.’

The doctor jerked my arm back into the socket and I wanted to bliksem him right there, punch him in the face, it was such incredible agony, but then it was quickly gone. He stepped back and said, ‘Jissie, pal, I thought you were going to hit me.’ He was in his fifties and as round as a barrel.

‘Fuck it, Doc, I nearly did.’

He laughed.

‘Phone, Doc. I have to know.’

‘I told you.’

‘You said we have to get my arm back in, then we could phone.’

‘Later.’

‘Now.’

‘It’s no use. She’s in theatre.’

‘Where is the operating theatre?’

‘Let me give you an anti-inflammatory.’ He took a syringe out of a drawer. ‘And something for the pain. I must put something on that cut as well.’

‘What cut?’

‘The one on your right biceps.’

‘Doc, where is the theatre?’

‘Sit here.’

‘No, Doc …’

He got angry. ‘Listen to me, pal. If you want to hit me, now’s the time, because I’m going to get tough with you. Just look at you. You’re trembling like a reed, hyperventilating, you’re in shock, bleeding and as dirty as a pig.