Geoffrey Jenkins - The River of Diamonds

'Give me the gun!' I ordered Koeltas.

'No — I shoot the bastard.'

My anger ignited against the hurrying figure. How many dead lay at his door! The methane had beaten him, so he had chosen to sit on the fountainhead, the richest poor man in the world, unable to do a thing about it himself and passionately refusing to let anyone else.

'Give me the gun!'

I took the weapon and worked the bolt to see it was running free. With infinite care, our bodies and faces clamped against the sand incline, we inched down towards the path. We had reached within feet of it when a bullet dug into the sand within a foot of my arm. The report was simultaneous. I glanced up: Shelborne lay peering at us, fiddling with the revolver for the next shot — perhaps it was jammed with sand. I could not unstrap the Remington to fire. It was a poor shot to miss me at that range. He seemed to be doing something to the barrel. Already he had had time to pick me off with a couple of snapshots before I reached the path and the safety of its overhang.

I let go and slid blindly. My tattered veldskoens bit on the harder path. For a moment I thought the weight of the rifle would overbalance me to certain death far below. I teetered, regained balance, and slipped to safety, unslinging the rifle to cover Koeltas. The Tartar-faced. skipper was right behind me, however. We ran crouched along the ledge until we had put the shoulder of the Long Wall between ourselves and Shelborne. We paused, gasping. The whole pathway seemed to sway nauseatingly.

'Jesus!' exclaimed Koeltas. 'Even here, the bladdy country shakes!'

The Long Wall gave vertiginously. It may not have been more than an inch or two, but it seemed like a malign force trying to shake us off. Talk softly! A loud sound would bring down the blancmange-like cliff on top of us.

'Come!' I whispered.

We eased along the ledge until it began to curve sharply inwards.

Koeltas held up a hand. 'He follows!'

Shelborne knew the Long Wall and it would be easy for him, once we had turned the shoulder facing Sudhuk, to pick us off on the one-thousand-foot incline to the beach. I wasn't going to give him the chance. Ahead was a buttress: I'd wait for Shelborne there — with the Remington.

We slipped round the corner: here the ledge widened into a shallow embankment about ten feet wide and fifty long. I lay down and set my sights at maximum depression. I worked the bolt and reloaded. There would be no mistake. I cuddled the butt against my shoulder.

Shelborne's speed caught me. I had expected a stealthy approach with a snapshot, but he whipped round the corner at a half-run, crouching low. He swung in under my sights. Before I could drop them I felt the heavy slug burn into my shoulder, close against the neck. As I half-rose in agony, I could not help admiring his superb shooting. His momentum had carried him round the corner, but he was already starting to back away to safety as I lifted the gun. The needle of the foresight rested in the middle of his chest, hard and clear against the black sealskin.

Koeltas was at my side. 'Skiet — shoot!' he sobbed. 'You've got the bastard — skiet!'

My eyes blurred and my finger would not come hard against the trigger. Take it easy, I told myself, you've got time and he's a perfect target. My left shoulder and neck were red-hot agony. I blinked my eyes to clear them. The elbow of my left arm, steadying the gun, felt weak. The muscle slackened. My mind was stunned, yawing with the pain. I could feel the blood running down inside my shirt. Why in God's name doesn't he shoot again? The thought drummed through my mind. He knows, blast him, he knows it was a killing shot and he won't have to waste another; I won't have the strength before I die to pull the trigger. He stood, the heavy black pistol hanging loosely by his side, smiling, upright, unafraid.

Slowly, my teeth clamped against my torn lips, I yanked the barrel up until the sights lay again on his chest. My eyelids were as heavy as the rifle. My thumb was numb against the butt but I fought for leverage with it — and my index finger responded. They tautened for the shot.

'Don't shoot! Don't shoot!'

Mary half-stumbled, half-fell across my back, knocking me forwards from my kneeling position. The rifle flew out of my hands. I heard Koeltas's savage oath and the roar of the shot and Mary's stifled scream. Shelborne spun round, cannoning into the wall. My senses were fading.

Shelborne's two shots were so quick that they sounded like one. I heard the ugly thud of the bullets into Koeltas and his thin scream of pain. He came upright and tripped over me, fell. His body jerked to the path-edge. The sand, as if extending a courtesy, fell back and he slid slowly over.

I lost consciousness.

It wasn't the land that was rocking so sickeningly, but the sea. I recognized the folding table first and then I knew where I was — in one of the Gquma's bunks. The blood-stained bandages everywhere must come from my wound. Or so I thought until I looked across at the opposite bunk. Shelborne's strong face was like lead and there was a tell-tale mound of bandages on his right side. Mary came in, took a handkerchief and wiped the ominous pink froth from his lips. His wheeze told me the rest of the story: Koeltas's bullet was in his lung.

Remembering what happened on the Long Wall brought me upright. 'Mary! What…!'

Her face was taut with worry. 'I'm glad you've come to. How do you feel?'

My mouth was dry and my head throbbed like a hangover. My hand went to my shoulder, close to the neck. There were no bandages, nothing except a small square of sticking-plaster. It was a little numb round about. I'd been shot with deadly accuracy in a fatal spot and all I had to show for it was an insignificant wound and a small ache. 'I… I…'

I was still in my Namib clothes. She hadn't even taken off the shirt. It was clear that the star patient was in the other bunk.

'What the hell goes on?' I asked harshly.

She came over so that her face was level with mine. 'Do you think you can sail this boat, John? The wind's right and we could be at Walvis Bay in three days. We've got to get him to hospital. He needs specialist attention. I've done what I can to stop the bleeding.'

'Sail to Walvis Bay?' I echoed. 'Look, Mary, my mind's still muzzy, but I do know that I was shot and that I passed out. The man who murdered your father tried to murder me. If ever anyone has blood on his hands, it's him. I…'

She smiled, and all the warmth I associated with her came flooding back to me. 'He didn't try to kill you, John.' She went to the table and picked a small sharp nylon dart-like thing out of a white surgical dish. She handed it to me. That's what he shot you with.'

I balanced it in my hand and laughed shakily. 'An anaesthetic dart?'

She nodded. 'Yes. The sort you shoot small game with to drug them for capture.'

I tossed up the tiny dart, speechless. Shelborne had deliberately aimed wide the first time — using a proper bullet — as I slid down towards the Long Wall. His delay over the second shot, which enable me to get away, was to load the dart. Clear, too, why he had stood, a wide-open target, while I battled to get my sights on him; he knew the drug would get me before I could fire. The two bullets he had fired at Koeltas were not darts, though. His superb marksmanship and guts had won that deadly exchange.

'Besides,' she said, and her eyes welled with tears, 'no man shoots his own son.'

I must be imagining her words in my drug-induced torpor, I told myself. But my head felt clearer as I swung out of the bunk. I took her by the shoulders. She sobbed quietly.

'My father! How can he be…? You mean that man is not Shelborne but Fred Tregard?'

'No,' she replied gently. 'That man in the bunk is the legend: Frederick William Caldwell.'