Blood Safari

20

Adrenalin flips the world into slow motion.

The bonnet of the BMW dipped for a second as the tyre disintegrated. I fought the wheel, not getting the response I expected, wanting to look back, to see whether the Nissan was on the road behind us. I stepped on the accelerator again. The rear-wheel drive kicked in and the car held the line of the turn for a moment, but I was going too fast and I didn’t have enough front traction. The rear swung out across the R40 towards the gravelled edge as I fought to bring it back in line.

‘Lemmer!’

The tyres shrieked, the BMW spun 180 degrees, its nose facing back towards the T-junction. The Nissan was bearing down on us and I could see the gunmen – balaclavas on their heads and gloves on their hands – as it appeared.

I tried to turn the car, but something smacked into us. Donk.

In my peripheral vision I caught a flash in the veld. Sunlight on a gun barrel? I spun the steering wheel, hands slick with sweat, and gunned the engine.

Donk. Another tyre, the right rear, was gone. The BMW swayed and juddered.

‘Lemmer!’

‘Calm down!’ I turned and accelerated, the nose came around, away from the balaclavas, and pointed north. A car approached us, honking desperately. It swung out just in time, the driver’s face a mask of panic. I put my foot down again and the rear tyre jumped completely off. Metal rim on tar, making a wild, screeching noise, we jerked forward, away from them, thirty, forty, fifty metres.

It screeched and bucked, but the car held its line down the middle of the road and we picked up speed. Far ahead, traffic approached.

They shot out the left rear tyre, rendering the BMW wholly uncontrollable. I would have to slow down. Or we would have to abandon it. Slow was not an option. I could see them coming after us in the rear-view mirror. I aimed for the veld, drove into the long grass.

The car burst through the fence, wires whipping with whirring noises. I braked hard and made a final sideways swerve in the grass. The engine stalled and suddenly all was quiet.

‘Out!’

She opened her door but couldn’t get out. I unlocked my seat belt and turned to her.

‘Your seat belt is still locked.’ I kept my voice even while I pushed the release button.

‘Out. Now.’ I opened my door and jumped out. She was already on her feet. I grabbed her hand and dragged her away from the car.

‘Wait,’ she screamed. She turned back, dived into the car, grabbed her handbag and then reached for my hand.

A train whistled. North-west of us. I pulled her along and we ran towards the sound.

‘Keep your head down,’ I yelled. The grass wasn’t as long here as it was near the road. Mopane trees and thorn bushes gave cover. A shot cracked behind us. It was a pistol. The bullet hummed past to the right.

The sniper with the rifle, the one that had shot out our tyres with real skill, was somewhere to the west of us. And the two balaclavas were behind us.

Another two shots. Both wild. They didn’t know exactly where we were.

I heard the rumble of the train, which was now directly north of us. The railway tracks were somewhere up ahead but I still couldn’t see them. I sped up, dragging Emma over an antbear hole. I jumped. Emma fell and her hand jerked out of mine. I turned and saw that she was lying stretched out. She’d tried to break the fall with her hands and her head had knocked something, a stone or stump. There was a two-centimetre wound on her cheekbone beside her eye.

‘Come on,’ I said, as I picked her up. Her eyes were dull. I looked back. They were moving through the grass and bushes, running towards us.

‘Lemmer.’

I pulled her by the hand. ‘We have to run.’

‘I’ve …’ She held a hand to her ribs, breathless. ‘… hurt something.’

‘Later, Emma. We’ve got to keep moving.’ Her mouth was open, breathing hard. Her cheek bled. We were too slow. The train.

The racket filled my ears as it came into view. It was a diesel locomotive, pulling a thundering brown centipede of freight cars. There was barbed wire between us and the railway service road, then another metre up a slope to the tracks.

I dragged her towards it. There was no time to climb the fence. I grabbed her with both hands around her chest.

‘No,’ she cried, gasping at the pain in her ribs, I lifted her over the wire and she fell to the ground on the other side. I ran, jumped and vaulted over three metres farther down. She tried to get up. They were coming. Sixty or seventy metres. There were two of them. They stopped and waved their arms at someone. Then I saw him, directly to the south. The man with the rifle. A big man, white, in camouflage gear and a baseball cap. He dropped to the ground. The balaclava looked at us and started running again.

I reached Emma. She was curled up, her lips forming ‘Lemmer’, but the train drowned out the sound. She looked bad. Blood from the wound on her cheek ran down her neck. The cut was deep. But the more serious problem was her ribs.

There was no time.

I put my left hand behind her back, held her tight and sprinted up the bank. Her handbag stayed behind in the grass. We ran alongside the train, but it was moving too fast. Still, it was our only chance. I put out my right hand, waited for the next freight car and grabbed when metal hit my hand. Lots of pain, but no luck. I’d wait for the next one. I grabbed again, got hold of a metal rod, and let the momentum jerk us up. I clung to her and swung her. She was too much weight on my arm, but I managed to bring her up with me between the cars. We landed on metal and my head banged against something. Still, I held on to Emma. My feet scrabbled for a foothold as I fought for balance. I dragged her in, pulled her tight against me, her hands gripping my shoulders. She screamed something I couldn’t hear.

We were going to make it.

I looked into the veld. The balaclavas stood still.

Sniper Man lay there on his belly, weapon in front of him, set up on its tripod. The rifle barrel and the telescope above it followed the train’s movement.

There was a puff of smoke from the weapon and then he was gone, out of the field of vision. Emma jerked in my arms and fell, flopping away from me. I grabbed her, got the thin material of her T-shirt in my fingers and held on.

It tore and I saw the exit wound high on her breast. He’d shot her. Rage exploded in me. The material ripped some more and she fell away in slow motion, eyes closed. Then she was gone, just the rag of T-shirt in my hand.

I jumped off the train. Too long in the air, stone and grass flashed past, and then I hit the ground, landing too hard on my shoulder. A hammer blow of agony went through me. I was rolling and something stabbed me. I continued to roll and hit something else. Finally, I came to a stop, but I couldn’t get up. I had to find Emma. My shoulder must be dislocated. My right arm was all wrong. It was to the front and side of me. I couldn’t breathe, but I tried to get up, bellowed, as I fought to breathe. I stumbled, walked and fell. Got back up on my feet.

There she lay. Deathly still.

‘Emma,’ but I couldn’t get the word out.

She lay on her face. There was blood at the back of her head. Blood on her back. That was the bullet wound. I turned her over with my left hand. She was gone, her body limp. Oh Jesus, please. I pressed my chest to hers, pushed my left hand behind her back, held her to me, and stood up. She hung over my shoulder, lifeless. Was she breathing?

The train had gone.

They were coming.

I had to run. Carrying Emma.

Stumbled. How would I get over the fence? I ran down the other side of the track away from them. I had to get over the wire, but I couldn’t.

Ahead of us there was a gate. Similar to a farm gate, it was an entrance to the service road. We must get over there. I would have to press down on the gate, swing over and jump. I ran, staggering and stumbling. I would have to use my right arm, but would it hold? I pressed my good arm on the gate, swung my legs and Emma over. It was an unreal moment in the air, the arm wasn’t going to hold. It gave and my right hip hit the top of the gate. We toppled over and I landed on my back with Emma on top of me. She was heavy now. I got to my knees and noticed that my left hand was slippery with blood from Emma’s back.

I made it to my feet, my legs wobbling beneath me.

The treeline was twenty metres away. I heard them shouting behind me. We had to reach the trees. My knees complained, my shoulder was all to hell, the pain a wave building to a crest. You must live, Emma le Roux, you must live.

There was a footpath into the trees. A game path. I jogged, staggering, through the mopanes. Don’t follow the path, because that’s what they’ll do. I swerved to the right. I could smell smoke, burning wood. Were there people near by?

Look where you step, I told myself. Don’t make a noise, get deeper into the bush. I had no more breath, my chest was on fire, legs numb, shoulder dislocated. The trees opened up and there were the huts, a humble place, with five women around a fire. Three children playing in the dust, one wrapped up on a woman’s back. Cooking pots. They were stooped over the pots. The women heard me and looked up with wide eyes. They saw a crazy white man with a bleeding woman over his shoulder.

I heard the balaclava calling behind me. Too close. We weren’t going to make it.

I ran towards the middle hut. The door was ajar. I ran in and shoved it closed with my hip. There were two mattresses on the ground and a small table with a radio on it. I laid Emma down and turned to face the door. When the first one came through, I would have to take his gun. With one hand? It wouldn’t work but it was my only option.

I tried to listen. It was deathly quiet. There was a crack in the door. I peered through it and saw them emerge from the bush, surprised by the huts. They halted when they saw the women, swung the guns and said something in a native language. No response. I couldn’t see the women at the fire. Balaclava shouted something, threatening and commanding. A woman’s voice answered him. They stared at her for a minute and ran off.

I listened. A child wailed. Then another. Women’s voices consoled them.

Had the women sent them on a wild-goose chase?

I went over to the mattress. Emma lay too still. I held my ear to her mouth. She was breathing. Jerkily, unevenly. Not good. There was too much blood on her chest, her hair, her neck, her cheek. I had to get her to a hospital.

The door opened. The woman stood there warily.

‘Is hulle weg?’ I asked.

No reaction.

‘Have they gone?’

She said something I couldn’t understand. She looked at Emma.

‘Doctor,’ I said.

‘Doctor,’ she said, and nodded.

‘Quickly.’

Another nod. ‘Quickly.’

She turned and called out to someone with urgency in her voice.