Johnny rested every hour for ten minutes. At one o’clock in the morning they finished the last of the water, and at two o’clock Johnny knew beyond all possibility of doubt that he had missed the watercourse and that he was lost.
He lay against a slab of ironstone, numb with fatigue and despair, and listened to the cackling chorus of death among the rocks nearby.
He tried to decide where he had gone wrong-Perhaps the watercourse curved away and he was now moving parallel to it, perhaps he had already crossed it without having recognized it. That was possible, he had heard of others stumbling blindly across a tarmac road without realizing it.
How many ridges had they climbed and descended? He could not remember. There was a place where he had stumbled into a scrub thorn and ripped his legs. Perhaps that was the watercourse.
He crawled across to Benedict.
“Brace up, bucko. We’re going back.” Johnny fell for the last time a little before dawn. When he rolled his head and squinted sideways at his wrist watch it was light enough to read the dial. The time was five o’clock.
He closed his eyes and lay for a long time, he had given up. It had been a good try - but it hadn’t worked. In an hour the sun would be up. Then it was finished.
Something was moving near him, soft and stealthyfooted. It was of no interest, he decided. He just wanted to lie here quietly, now that it was finished.
Then he heard the sniffing, the harsh sniffing of a hungry dog.
He opened his eyes. The hyena was ten feet away, watching him. Its bottom jaw hung open, and the pink tongue lolled loosely from the side of its mouth. He could smell it, a stink like an animal cage at the zoo, dung and offal and rotting carrion.
Johnny tried to scream, but no sound came from his mouth. His throat was closed, and his tongue filled. his mouth. He struggled on to his elbows. The hyena drew back, but without the ludicrous panic of before.
Leisurely it trotted away, and then turned to face him again from a distance of twenty yards. It grinned at him, slurping the pink tongue into its mouth as it gulped saliva.
Johnny dragged himself to where Benedict lay, and looked down at him.
Slowly the blind bandaged head turned towards him, the black lips moved.
“Who’s there?” A dry husky whisper. Johnny tried to answer but his voice failed him again. He hawked and chewed painfully, working a trace of moisture into his mouth. Now that Benedict was conscious
Johnny’s hatred flared again.
“Johnny,” he croaked. “It’s Johnny.”
“Johnny?” Benedict’s hand came up and he touched the bandages over his eyes.
“What?” Johnny reached across, lying on his side, and untied the knot at Benedict’s temple. He peeled the bandages from his eyes, and
Benedict blinked at him. The light of dawn was stronger now.
“Water?” Benedict asked.
Johnny shook his head.
“None.” Benedict closed his eyes and then opened them, staring in terror at Johnny.
“Ruby! Johnny whispered. “Sergio! Hansie!” A spasm of guilt twisted Benedict’s face, and Johnny leaned closer to him to hiss a single word into his ear.
“Bastard!” Johnny rested on his elbows, swallowing thickly, then he spoke again.
“Up!” He crawled behind Benedict and pushed and dragged him into a sitting position.
look.” Twenty yards away the two hyenas sat expectantly, leering idiotically and bright-eyed with impatience.
Benedict began to tremble. He made a mewing whimpering sound.
Johnny worked him slowly backwards until he had him propped against a rock.
He rested again, leaning on the rock beside Benedict.
“I’m going,” he whispered. “You stay.”
Benedict made that mewing sound again, shaking his head weakly, staring at the two slobbering animals ahead of him.
Johnny slung the knapsack about his neck. He closed his eyes and called upon the last reserves of his strength. With a heave he got to his knees. Darkness and bright lights obscured his vision. They cleared and he heaved again and he was on his feet. His knees buckled and he grabbed at the rock to steady himself
“Cheerio!” he whispered.
“Have fun!” And he went lurching and staggering away into the wilderness of black rock.
Behind him the mewing whimper rose to a bubbling scream.
“Johnny. Please, Johnny.” Johnny closed his mind to that cry, and staggered on.
“Murderer!” screamed Benedict. The accusation checked Johnny. He leaned against another rock for support, and looked back.
Benedict’s face was convulsed, and a thin line of bloody froth rimmed his lips. The tears were pouring unashamedly down his cheeks to soak into the blood and antiseptic stained bandages.
“Johnny. My brother. Don’t leave me.” Johnny pushed himself away from the rock. He swayed and almost fell. Then he staggered back to
Benedict and slipped down into a sitting position beside him.
From the knapsack he took out the knife and laid it on his lap.
Benedict was sobbing and moaning.
“Shut up. Damn you!” whispered Johnny.
The sun was well up now. It was burning directly into Johnny’s face. He could feel the skin of his cheeks stretching to bursting-point. The veils of darkness kept passing over his vision, but he blinked them away. The flutter of his eyelids was the only movement he had made in the last hour.
The hyenas had closed in. They were pacing nervously back and forth in front of where Johnny and Benedict sat.
Now one of them stopped and stretched its neck out, sniffing eagerly at Benedict’s blood-clotted foot, creeping inch by inch closer.
Johnny stirred and the creature jumped back, bobbing its head ingratiatingly, grinning as if in apology.
The time had come to fall back on their last line of defence.
Johnny hoped he had not left it too late. He was very weak. His eyes and ears were tricking him, his vision jumped and blurred and there was a humming sound in the silence as though the desert was an orchard filled with bees.
He spun the cog-wheel of his cigarette lighter and the flame lit.
Carefully he applied it to the fuse of the smoke flare, and it spluttered and caught.
Johnny lobbed the flare towards the hyenas, and as the clouds of pink smoke spewed out, they fled in shrieking terror.
An hour later they were back. Slinking out of the rocks, cautious again. Johnny saw them only in flashes, between the bursts of darkness in his head. The insect drone in his ears was louder, it was confusing, making it difficult for him to think clearly.
It took him ten minutes to light the second flare. His throw was so weak that the flare pitched only a few inches beyond his own feet.
The pink smoke spread over them.
Johnny felt the blood humming in his ears as the swirling pink clouds engulfed him. The sulphurous bite of the smoke in his throat choked him. The sound in his ears became a drumming roar, a rushing clattering hissing bellow. Then there was a wild wind in the stillness of the desert.
Miraculously the smoke cloud was ripped away by the wind.
Johnny looked up into the sky from which the great wind came.
Twenty feet above him, hanging on the glistening dragon-fly wing of its rotor, was the police helicopter.
Tracey’s face was framed in the cabin window of the helicopter.
He saw her lips form his name before he fainted.
