Geoffrey Jenkins - A Cleft Of Stars

Again and again I repeated the performance until at length I found myself gasping behind the safety of the eight-foot wall near its extremity where it had collapsed. To work around it was easy enough and, except for the first twenty yards or so where it lipped the drop, the going was easy for (as I had surmised) the terrace flattened out and shelved towards the river bed. This was probably the reason why a protecting wall had been built there in the first place.

I hung back for a moment, reluctant to leave the river which had served me well so far. I had camouflaged the odd boat I had travelled in up river under a palm clump by the big pool and a double-check now showed me it was completely hidden from view. My shoestring budget had precluded a Land-Rover but in Messina I had seen for sale this curious craft which had been used for catching tiger-fish on the river. Its hull was a cut-out aluminium float from a wartime Catalina flying-boat and it was propelled by an ageing outboard motor. The boat's shallow draught was ideal for my purpose, for the higher I ascended the river the worse it became until finally it was reduced to a series of stagnant hippo pools interconnected by shallow channels twisting through moats of burning sand. At length, at the Limpopo's junction with the Shashi, the water became a soupy devil's brew stinking of dead fish and crocodiles, surrounded by a fringe of unsavoury mud. I shook off my unwillingness to cut my lines of communication and set off along the wall, I edged along cautiously hoping to find a spy hole. The structure was built of unmortared tabular blocks set stringer-wise but there was no coursing or bonding as. in modern building practice. Portions of the upper surface had fallen away here and there. It continued true towards my target, the guard's hut in the northeastern sector of The Hill on the corner opposite the queen's grave. It looked as if eventually the wall ended slap against the cliff face.

It was slow going at first because of the drop within a foot or two of the outer face but within range of the cliffs this ledge broadened in keeping with the shelving terrain and I picked up speed, moving at a tight crouch, gun in hand. I decided to load only when I could see my objective, for fear that a chance fall might loose off a shot and give me away. Nearer the cliffs and therefore nearer the hut the wall became more solid: it would have taken a modern tank or bulldozer to break through.

It was imperative I should see what lay on the other side. I went on to where a huge boulder had been used to form part of the wall, in the hope that I might be able to climb it. It was unnecessary, however, for where the blocks joined the boulder there were several rainwater drainage holes at the height of my head.

I started to get my eye to one of them but it was blocked with rubble and dirt. I reached to clear it with my fingers but drew back in alarm at the feel of something alive. There was a movement and hiss like a tyre deflating and a puff-adder's head emerged. I dodged out of range of its strike with a shudder at the sight of the beautiful mother-of-pearl palate gleaming behind the deadly fangs.

There were more drainage holes where the wall continued on the other side of the boulder and this time I took the precaution of cleaning one out with my rifle butt before trying to look. I loaded the Mannlicher silently with one round — it had no magazine-and rested it ready to hand against the wall.

The guard's hut was only a biscuit's toss away on the other side. It was a rough affair built of kanniedood poles with a sloping thatched roof and several windows. A radio aerial was strung from a long pole on the roof to a nearby cliff and a big barrel-shaped water tank stood near by with a ladder against it.

I watched and waited, but there was no sign of life or movement.

It seemed significant that a window at the back (presumably the kitchen) was open, which meant that the hut was in current occupation. In the shadow of the wall I was cool and I could afford to let the moves come from the other side. After half an hour I decided that it was safe. Apart from checking the place I was also tempted by thoughts of a long drink from the tank. My mopani leaf had been chewed tasteless. I spat it out and started to climb the wall. It was smooth and difficult and I flinched at the thought of another puff-adder since I had to search blindly for grips in the open stone joints each time I handed myself up a stage farther.

When I reached the top, still nothing moved at the hut. There was only that open window as a giveaway. Watching it, I dropped down carefully, silently, ducking for a minute behind a fallen rock halfway to the back door. I made a final sprint from its cover and flattened myself against the hut's wall by the open window.

Then I risked a glance into the room beyond. There were plates and a cup on a crude deal table and a cut loaf of bread, but no human occupant. An inner door was shut; the outside door locked.

I was overcome by a sense of unease and suspicion. The kitchen set-up looked like a trap.

I disengaged the Mannlicher's safety catch and made my way, inch by inch, towards the front.

It was the smell which brought me to a halt: not the fishy stench of the river, but a fetid, animal odour which reached into the pit of my stomach and knotted my muscles. I knelt down, scarcely breathing, and by feel alone double checked the rifle's safety catch while I cased every point of the compass. I snicked back the flap of my shirt pocket containing the shells in order to be able to reload quickly. Then something thumped softly on the inside of the wooden wall close to my face.

I started my spring for the front door as the thought crashed home that the murderer was only an inch or two away through the planks.

He came out carrying the dead man's head.

I cannoned headlong into him, tripped and hurtled over his back, firing from the hip as a purely reflex action. The brute lay kicking. It was not on the dying hyena, however, that my sickened gaze fastened. A man's head, the lower jaw missing, with stray pieces of skin and hair adhering to the face and scalp, rolled away from the animal's snapping, frothing jaws.

Between the eyes was a bullet-hole and the back had been smashed wide by a soft-nosed bullet.,

I hauled myself up by the verandah post, winded and sick from the heavy fall. I stared transfixed at the sight of tobaccostained teeth projecting from beneath a fragment of lip on the skull; as I did so terror mounted like a quick-burning fuse from the sphincter muscles of my anus into my stomach. Blind panic exploded like a grenade and I jerked away into a wild career across the open terrace-away, away, anything to be away from the awful silence of that bizarre execution and the thought of the murderer's sights on my own back. I ran zig-zagging from the imaginary gun until I was brought to a halt by the security fence. I clawed my way along it and threw myself more by instinct than reason through the gap I had cut, and hid my head below the level of the terrace, out of sight of the watchful eyes with which my supercharged imagination invested The Hill.

Gradually my breath returned, and with it my sanity. The sun on my hatless head and the unbroken stillness bore in upon me the futility of my crazy sprint. The wild oscillations of irrational fear steadied round the deadpoint. I got a grip on myself and tried to make some sort, of assessment, and to force myself to go back to the hut.

It was essential to establish the identity of the dead man: Rankin or a guard. If it was Rankin, my whole plan was shot and then all I could do would be to return, tail between legs, to Nadine — if she would still have me after my walkout. For the first time since leaving I began to have doubts. The hardships of the river had enabled me to push consideration of my shabby trick out of mind but now I had to face it squarely. The end had to justify the means and if Rankin was dead I had lost the end-and possibly Nadine as well.