The meeting over, we dispersed without any discussion about the proposed attack on the ferry for which all this was merely the prologue, and I was grateful. Those who were to be my fellow travellers in the boat stayed on to talk. We decided to move out by first light and return upriver in time to get cracking on the coming day's work. Sadiq had been briefed and while not exactly enthusiastic he had agreed to come with us, to see the enemy for himself.
Later I lay back looking at the dark shape of the rig looming over us, a grotesque shape lit with the barest minimum of light. I wondered what the hell we were going to do with it. I had enough thinking to keep me awake all night long.
But when I hit the sack I didn't know a thing until I felt Hammond gently awakening me, three hours before dawn.
CHAPTER 25
In the raw small hours we assembled at the pontoon, keeping our torches hooded and try ing to keep quiet as we crossed the scrubby clearing. We couldn't leave totally unobserved but this was a practice run for later on, when keeping quiet would be vital.
Overnight Hammond had had the boat baled out and the outboard tested and found to run as sweetly as any outboard does, which is to say fitfully and with the occasional lurch and stutter to give you a nervous leap of the pulse. There was ample fuel, a small fluke anchor and a rond anchor for digging into an earth bank if necessary, some water canteens and a couple of long coils of line.
We had found oars for the dinghy but only one rowlock so someone had cobbled up another out of a piece of scrap iron bent to shape in the lathe; this and its more shapely companion were wrapped in cloth to minimize noise. The best we could do for balers were old beer cans with the tops cut out.
The five of us made a pretty tight fit. Hammond and McGrath took the centre thwart to row us out, we'd only start the engine well away from shore, I as the lightest sat forward, and Zimmerman and Sadiq crowded onto the after thwart. It was going to be no pleasure jaunt.
'What about crocodiles?' Hammond asked.
Zimmerman, who'd had years in Africa, snorted. 'Not a chance, Ben. They like shoaling water and they'll be sluggish before dawn anyway. Lazy brutes. Why bother with a boat when the bank's swarming with breakfast?'
Sadiq said gravely, 'Mister Hammond, we need not fear the crocodiles. They seldom attack boats with an engine.'
McGrath said, grinning, 'No, it's the hippos we have to think about,' giving Hammond another direction in which to cast his fears. I told him to lay off. What I didn't say was that, being no sailor even of the Sunday-in-the-park variety, I had a strong conviction that this frail craft was likely to tip us out and drown us at any moment. When we pushed off and the chill water lapped at the gunwales I was certain of it.
We didn't sink, of course, but we did get pretty wet about the feet and the face. After some time Hammond suggested that we start the outboard. This was achieved with only a few curses and false alarms. The little boat rocked wildly before the motor settled down to a welcome steady purr and we began to. pick up some pace. We hugged the shoreline though not too close for fear of reed beds, and the light was beginning to allow us to distinguish details.
We were travelling with the current and so moved along swiftly. Hammond had calculated that we should arrive within sight of the ferry at about five o'clock, an hour before dawn. We would shut off the engine and slip along under oars until we could see the ferry point, then pull back upriver to find a concealed landing place. From there we'd reconnoitre on land.
'What happens if the ferry's on the far shore?' Zimmerman asked.
'We can cross in this thing and collect it. No sweat,' Hammond said. 'Come right a little, Mick.'
'What about the ferry people?' I said. 'They aren't simply going to lend us their craft, are they?'
'No, more likely they'll run it for us themselves, at a price.'
I'd been wondering who was going to handle the ferry. There would be a lot of local knowledge involved apart from familiarity with the craft itself. I said, 'Good thinking. Once we've taken the ferry point here we send a delegation and get the ferry back in business – just for us.'
'Well, it might work,' said McGrath dubiously. His form of payment would probably be a gun at the pilot's belly.
'First let's take the ferry,' I said. Perhaps it would be held by about five men whom we could capture or rout with a minimum of fuss, but I doubted that it would be that easy.
There was no further talk as we cruised steadily on until we saw the shapes of man-made buildings along the bank. We had arrived, and it still lacked half an hour to dawn.
There it is,' I whispered, pointing. Instantly Zimmerman cut the engine and we used the oars to hold us stemming the tide. Shapes were emerging but confusingly, all detail obscured. There was a huge dark shape in the water a hundred yards offshore that we couldn't identify as yet. An island, perhaps? Hammond and McGrath back watered to keep us upstream while we scanned the shore anxiously for movement.
As all dawns do in central Africa, this one came in minutes. The air became grey and hazy, a shaft of early sunlight sprang out across the water and it was as if a veil had been lifted. Several voices whispered together.
'It's the ferry!'
She was anchored offshore, bobbing gently, a marvellous and welcome sight. She was big. Visions of a hand- poled pontoon, one-car sized and driven by chanting ferrymen, not at all an uncommon sight in Africa, receded thankfully from my mind. Kironji had said it took trucks, and trucks he meant. This thing would take several vehicles at one crossing. And there was something else about her profile in the watery light which nagged at me: a long low silhouette, bow door's slanted inwards to the waterline and a lumpy deck structure aft. She was a far cry from the sleek and sophisticated modern ferries of Europe.
We slid out from under the shadow of her bow and made rapidly for shore. Hammond rowed us out of sight of the ferry point and tucked into the bank in as secretive a spot as we could find, setting both anchors. We disembarked into the fringe of vegetation.
I looked to McGrath. He and Sadiq were the experts now, and I wasn't sure which of the two was going to take command. But there wasn't any doubt really; with assurance Sadiq started giving instructions, and McGrath took it with equanimity. I think he'd approved of Sadiq as a fighting man and was prepared to take his orders.
'Mister Mannix, you and Mister Zimmerman come with me, please,' Sadiq said. 'Mister McGrath will take Mister Hammond. We are going towards the buildings. We three will take the further side, Mister McGrath the nearer. Nobody is to make any disturbance or touch anything. Observe closely. We must know how many men and officers are here, and what weapons they have. Where they keep the radio and telephone. What transport they have. The layout of the terrain. Whether there are people on the ferry, and what other boats there are.'
I whistled silently. It was a tall order. All he wanted to know was absolutely everything.
'If you are caught,' he went on, 'make as much outcry as you can, to alarm the others. But try not to reveal that they exist. If the opportunity arises for you to steal weapons do so, but do not use them.'
He looked intently at McGrath who showed no reaction but that of careful attention. Sadiq said, 'I think that is all. Good luck, gentlemen.'
The astounding thing was that it worked exactly as he planned it. In my imagination I had seen a hundred things going drastically wrong: ourselves captured, tortured, shot, the site overrun with soldiers armed to the teeth, the ferry incapacitated or nonexistent… every obstacle under the sun placed between us and success. In fact it was all extremely easy and may well have been the most fruitful reconnaissance mission in the annals of warfare.
This was because there were so few men there. Our team made a count of fifteen, McGrath said seventeen, and the highest-ranking soldier we could spot was a corporal. They had rifles and one light machine-gun but no other weapons that we could see. There was a radio equipped with headphones and another in one of the cars, but it was defunct; Hammond reported having seen its guts strewn about the passenger seat.
There were two trucks, one with a shattered windscreen, a Suzuki four-wheel drive workhorse and a beat-up elderly Volvo.
