The gangplank was ready. Kemp as load master beckoned the truck forward. The driver was Mick McGrath. It was going to be a ticklish operation to get the thing safely on board and he was the best we had, apart from Hammond himself. Zimmerman disappeared behind the truck as McGrath started to drive down the shore.
There was a sudden high grinding scream from the truck's engine and the vehicle lurched, bucked and came to a standstill. McGrath's face, looking puzzled and annoyed, appeared at the cab window. Voices shouted simultaneously.
'Christ, watch out! The rear wheel's adrift! 1'
McGrath jumped down and glared at the damage. One tyre was right off its axle and the truck was canted over into the dust, literally stranded.
'Fetch the jacks!' he called.
I said, 'No time – get another truck. Zimmerman, go drive one down here! You men get cracking and unload the gear.' I gave them no time to think and Kemp, always at his best in a transport crisis, was at my elbow. Considering that I'd anticipated the accident and he hadn't, he coped very well. Swiftly he cleared a path through the littered beach so that a second truck could get around the stranded one and still be able to mount the causeway. An engine roared as Zimmerman returned with the replacement.
Antoine Dufour sprang forward, his face suddenly white.
'No! Not that one – that's my truck!' he yelled.
His vehemence startled the men around him.
'Come on, Frenchie, any damn truck'll do,' someone said.
'Not that one!'
'Sorry, Dufour; it must have been the nearest to hand,' I said crisply. Dufour was furious but impotent to stop the truck as it passed us and lined up precisely at the causeway. Zimmerman leapt out of the cab for McGrath to take his place, but Dufour was on top of him.
'You not take my truck, by God!' He lapsed into a spate of French as he struggled to pass Zimmerman who held him back.
Tack it in!' Kemp's voice rose. 'Dufour, ease off. This truck's part of the convoy now and we'll damn well use it if we have to.'
I said urgently, 'McGrath – get in there and drive it on fast.'
He looked at me antagonistically.
'There are other trucks, Mannix. Let the Frenchy alone.'
'Will you for God's sake obey an order!' I hadn't expected opposition from anyone but Dufour himself. McGrath's eyes locked with mine for a moment and then he pushed his way past Dufour and Zimmerman, swung himself aboard and gunned the motor. He slammed the truck into gear and jerked it onto the causeway. Then common sense made him calm down to inch the truck steadily onto the oddly-shaped 'B'-gon raft. The thing tipped under the weight but to our relief did not founder, and although water lapped about the truck's wheels it was apparent that we had a going proposition on our hands. The cheer that went up was muted. The onlookers were still puzzled by Dufour's outburst.
Kemp got men to put chocks under the truck's wheels and make lashings fast. The gear was loaded. Then the raft was hauled further out to lie well clear of the bank.
I turned my attention to Dufour.
He had subsided but was pale and shaken. As I passed Zimmerman I gave him a small nod of approval, then took Dufour's arm.
'Antoine,' I said, 'come with me. I want a word.'
As we walked away he stared over his shoulder at his truck where it rode on our ridiculous raft offshore and out of his reach.
We stopped out of earshot of the others.
'Antoine, I apologize. It was a dirty trick to play.'
'Monsieur Mannix, you do not know what you have done,' he said.
'Oh yes I do. You are thinking of your secret cargo, aren't you?'
His jaw dropped. 'You know?' 'Of course I know. Zimmerman found it and told me. It's his trade, don't forget. He could probably sniff out gelignite at a mile.'
Dufour stared at me appalled. I had to reassure him on one point at once.
'Now, listen. I don't care a damn why you have the stuff. Or where you got it. It's no bloody business of mine. But right now that stuff you've got is the best weapon in our whole arsenal, and to get ourselves and everyone else out of this mess we need it.'
'Oh, my God.' As he looked at me and I saw a bitter smile on his face. 'Gelignite. You want to use my truck to blow up the enemy, yes?'
'I hope not. But it's a damn good threat. Harry Zimmerman will pass the word around, and the assault team will know that we've got a bomb out there. It'll be like pointing a cannon. The rebels have no weapon that can reach us, and we've got one that can devastate them. That's why we have the second 'B'-gon along; if we need to we evacuate the first, aim it at the landing point and let her rip. Now do you understand?'
'Suppose I told you the gelignite was worthless.'
'Don't try. We need it.'
He sat down as if his knees had given way. After a couple of minutes he raised his face and said, 'Yes, I understand. You are a clever man, Monsieur Mannix. Also a bastard. I wish us all luck.'
Back at the camp I put my affairs in order. I wrote a personal letter to leave with the Doctor, and gave Sam Kironji an impressive-looking letter on British Electric notepaper, promising that my company would reimburse him for all expenses and recommending him for a bonus. This I implemented with a cash bonus of my own which impressed him even more.
Wingstead and I discussed the rig. If we took the ferry the convoy would move to Kanjali so that the patients could be transferred. And there the rig would have to be abandoned.
'We have to be careful of Kemp, though,' Wingstead said. The rig means a lot more to him than to me. It's extraordinary; personally I think he's been bitten by the juggernaut bug as hard as any of the Nyalans.'
'I wonder what they'll do when it grinds to a halt and we abandon it,' I said idly.
'Go home again. It'll probably end up in their mythology.'
'And the rig itself?'
'Whoever gets into power will engage someone to. drive it up to Bir Oassa, I suppose. It'll be an interesting exercise in international finance, sorting out the costs and legalities involved. But I'll tell you one thing, Neil, whoever takes it it won't be me. I've had it here. I'll sell it to the best offer.'
'And what then?'
'Go back home with Kemp and Hammond and build a better one. We've learned a hell of a lot out here.'
'Stick to hydroelectric schemes in Scotland, will you?'
He laughed. 'That's the way I feel now. As for later, who knows?'
For the second day running we embarked in the chill small hours to sail down the Katali River to Kanjali. I felt very apprehensive. Yesterday had been an unnerving experience for anyone untrained in guerrilla warfare. Today was terrifying.
The two 'B'-gons were barely visible. We used the runabout as a tender, poling it over the dark water to lie alongside the 'B'-gon on which stood the darker bulk of the truck. We scrambled aboard, passing our weapons up to be stowed in the truck.
Hammond and his work team had lashed the two 'B'-gons together, slotting hexagon shapes into one another, adding a couple of 'A'-gons here and there and assembling the thing like a child's toy.
The truck barely fitted on the after section, a foot of space to spare around it. With its high rear section and flat forward deck it was a travesty of the ferry at Kanjali. Aft on a crossbeamed structure Hammond had mounted Sam Kironji's outboard motors; one was a seven horsepower job and one six, which meant they were close enough in motive power not to send us in a circle. He had a man on each throttle and would control their speed and direction from the cab of the truck.
We were all very quiet as we set off.
We'd made our farewells, temporary ones I hoped. Dr Kat said that Lang might not live to see Manzu. I wondered how many of us would.
