Deaken’s War

22

Deaken hadn’t rested at all. He remained nervously apprehensive at the sudden, hidden sounds around him. Towards first light, he was attacked by swarms of mosquitoes which stung so badly that he had tried to cover his face with his jacket and sat, cowering, beneath its inadequate protection.

Dawn came at 4:50 in the morning, an almost imperceptible darkening of the tree and shrub outlines against the increasing greyness and then abruptly dissolving into glowing reds and apricots. Deaken rose to his feet, cramped and aching, shook out his jacket and carefully ran his hands over his stubbled face; his skin was lumpy and throbbing from the insect attack.

He moved slowly out to the edge of the coppice, crouched against overhanging branches and staring down at the coarse grass and bracken underfoot. Each footstep precipitated an eruption of dust and fresh squads of flying things which buzzed angrily around him. Deaken fanned them away furiously. The chill of the night had not been melted by the morning sun, and Deaken shivered, realizing he was damp from the dew. He stopped at the treeline and stared out over the barren plain.

There was no sign of the road.

His coppice was like a furred wart against the smooth, unbroken face of the plain, without the slightest elevation or undulation which might have provided a vantage point to pinpoint the broken, metalled line of the highway.

He was lost, even in daylight.

He tried desperately to orient himself. He could pick out the tree against which he had spent the cramped night. He thought he had come upon it directly at right angles. Which meant that if he walked away from it in a straight line, he would hit the road. But what if it hadn’t been at right angles?

“Shit!” he said aloud. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

He shouted, but his voice was swallowed by the vast emptiness. To his left, maybe not more than four hundred yards away, a dancing class of high-stepping gazelles paused in their foraging, gazing around with ear-pointed tenseness. After a moment their heads dropped back to their feeding.

“Shit!” Deaken shouted again. This time they didn’t even look up.

The sun appeared yellow over the rim of the horizon, but it was not high enough yet to dispel the chill in Deaken’s body. Christ, he felt awful: tired and dirty and itchy. Awful. Thirsty too. But not hungry. He didn’t feel as if he wanted to eat again. When had he last eaten? Not since the plane, bringing him here. Only yesterday-less than twenty-four hours, to be precise. It seemed much longer; why did everything seem so much longer than if actually was? He checked his watch again. Six.

Where was this bloody road? Like a novice swimmer venturing out of his depth, Deaken moved away from the trees, halting after only a few yards; to his right, close enough to make him jump, a disturbed squabble of birds winged suddenly into the brightening sky. This time the gazelle herd scattered in their high-floating, slow-motion run. The sun was strong enough to affect the nighttime dampness now, hollows he would not normally have recognized puddling with a white gauze of mist. Deaken frowned towards the rising sun, trying to gauge its strength. Metalled roads overheated in the African glare send up a miragelike shimmer; would he get the marker that way, from a shiver of heated air? No good, thought Deaken. That would take hours. High above, so high and so far away that there was no sound, a silver flicker of an aircraft trailed by with agonizing slowness. Washed and shaved and perfumed and pressed, passengers and crew would be confident, even careless, of their timetable and destination.

All around the mist thatches were being dried out by the heat. Knowing at least the direction from which he had approached the outcrop of trees, Deaken turned a full 180 degrees, seeking the telltale quiver of air which might indicate the road. Nothing. Just the gazelle grazing again. An occasional hovering bird poised over some unseen prey. Miles and miles of flat, tobacco-coloured ground, with the occasional upthrust thumb of an anthill.

Very soon Deaken was too hot, and made for the shelter of the trees, consumed by a bitter sense of continued impotence. He was certain Kaolack had been mentioned during the stifling car ride. A major town, he remembered from the aircraft map. If he was right about Kaolack, then the road had to be one of the main routes through the scorched and arid country, an artery in constant dawn-to-dusk use. So where were the cars and lorries and buses?

Another fifteen minutes, Deaken decided. If there was no identifying movement by then he would take a chance and strike out directly from the coppice. It would remain a marker anyway, so if he got too far away without locating the highway, he could always return and try another route.

Why fifteen minutes? Why not right away, without wasting any more time?

Occasionally scurrying things-only rats or field mice, he hoped-darted noisily through the underbrush in front of him as he edged hesitantly forward. He jerked back at a sting worse than the others, high over his eye. At once a puffiness formed, soft under his fingers, the swelling quickly closing his left eye.

The bus was already firmly on the plain by the time he noticed it. There was a surprised moment of total immobility, impressions kaleidoscoping through Deaken’s mind-he was going in the wrong direction, parallel rather than towards the road.

He started to run, waving his arms wildly and yelling to attract the driver’s attention, careless now of any danger underfoot or of the pain pumping through him.

There was a horrifying surrealism about it all. The bus seemed to be travelling slowly, as the aircraft had earlier, and his progress through the snagging scrub seemed equally slow. Realizing that he would never reach the road in time to stop the bus, Deaken halted, snatching off his jacket and waving it above his head. The speed of the bus didn’t alter and he began running again. He ran with his head bent sideways, able to see the shape of the occupants through the slatted side windows and their luggage bundled on the rimmed rack of the roof.

Deaken stopped again, cupping his hands to his mouth and shouting, “Stop! Help! Stop!” The vehicle continued on, speed unchanged.

Deaken couldn’t run any more. His breath was wheezing and his body ached and throbbed. He stood, aware he was a long way from the road, vainly waving, and then stopped bothering even with this, to watch the bus become smaller and smaller until it finally vanished from the plain. It took a long time for his breathing to become normal and the pain to diminish. Deaken remained slump-shouldered, feeling the sun burn into him. Then, head bowed, he began to trudge towards the road. Sweat rivered his face, making the bites irritate even more. He was still some way from the road when he saw the air quiver for which he’d been looking while far back among the trees. He was surprised how far from the road the coppice was: it looked very small from where he stood. He must have been very frightened to have travelled that far the previous night. Deaken moved on, coming finally to the storm ditch. It was wide and deep, filled at the bottom with the junk of passing travellers, wrappers and boxes and rotting fruit and the inevitable Coca-Cola can. The bank upon which Deaken stood was sheer but the opposing one was sloped up towards the road. It was wide, but he thought he could jump it. He moved back several paces and then attempted a stumbling run-up. At the last moment he missed his footing, and launched himself into the air with hardly any pace. Arms and legs flailing, Deaken thumped down on the other side, but felt himself sliding backwards into the filthy ditch. His fingers scrabbled to catch a grip, and groaning with the effort, he hauled himself upwards, until he could feel the macadam hot and sticky under his fingers.

Deaken levered himself upright. The road ran black and ruler-straight from horizon to horizon, the cooked air dancing crazily above it. There was no shade in either direction. The sun seemed to be burning into him at the very crown of his head. He took his jacket off again to create a protective canopy and crouched down in the dust at the side of the road. Flicking his tongue against the dryness, Deaken felt his lips were already hard and scaling. Down there among the bottle and the cans there would be trapped water. But it would be stagnant and stale, diseased. His throat felt swollen and gritty. Deaken dropped his jacket to look at his watch. Nine thirty. Still time, if someone were to come along soon. He screwed around, looking back and forth along the road. Nothing. It seemed to be getting more difficult to swallow, as if his throat were closing. He coughed and it hurt. Deaken stood to ease the cramp from his legs.

At first he imagined that it was a trick of the distorted light against the heat of the road. He squinted, squeezing his eyes tightly shut to clear his vision and when he opened them he saw that there was definite movement, a black shape materializing down the highway. Deaken struggled back into his jacket and stepped out onto the road, feeling the heat scorch at once through the soles of his feet. He stood in the very centre, arms raised in front of him. It was a lorry, open-backed with slatted sides to hold its cargo, bulbous wings and a dust-covered cab; the wipers had cleared two semi-circular eyes in the windscreen, which made it look like a vast, metallic insect.

Then he heard the horn sound, strident and impatient. It hadn’t occurred to him that people wouldn’t stop, coming upon him stranded in this deserted savannah.

“Dear God, no!” Deaken moaned.

He waved his arms faster. The engine note didn’t change and the horn blast was more prolonged. He wouldn’t move, Deaken decided. He would stay right where he was. The man would have to halt or run him down. Deaken glanced desperately to left and right, trying to estimate if there were room for the man to swerve around him at the last minute. A hundred yards now, maybe less. The insect face was bearing down, hom screeching, and then suddenly the headlights flared on in a warning flash. Deaken moved sideways, bringing himself more directly into the path of the vehicle. There was a puff of burning smoke from the squealing rear wheels as they locked. The back slid in the soft tar, slewing the lorry towards the ditch. The driver released the brakes, correcting the skid, then braked again. There were fresh spurts of smoke. Cold with fear, Deaken remained where he was, staring up at the lorry, so close now that it towered above him. He could see the driver’s face, black, eyes pebbled with fear. Behind the ballooned wings were rusting running boards, Deaken noticed. He had slowed the lorry sufficiently to leap aboard if he had to dodge at the last minute. He wouldn’t lose the lorry. Couldn’t. It slewed again, slow and controllable. Deaken had to move, but backwards, not sideways, so that he still blocked the road.

There was a moment of dust-settling silence. Deaken recovered first. He went immediately to the passenger side, hauling at the door, not thinking until he was framed at the opening that the man might have a weapon. He didn’t. From his startled expression it was obvious he expected Deaken to have one. The lawyer smiled, splaying his hands.

“I need help”, he said in English. “Transport.”

The driver looked blankly at him but there was a discernible relaxation in his attitude.

“Assistance,” he said, attempting French. “Aid.” There was still no comprehension. What was help in Swahili? Fervently Deaken tried to recall the long-unused words, remembering at last. “Saidia,” he said. Still nothing.

Deaken pointed to the road. “Dakar?” he said.

The man’s face cleared. He said something Deaken could not understand, nodding and smiling agreement. Deaken indicated that he wanted to sit in the adjoining seat, repeatedly pointing ahead and repeating “Dakar.” Smiling, clearly relieved, the man met the request with a further nod of agreement. As an afterthought, Deaken indicated the way from which the lorry had been travelling and said. “Dakar?” again. Once more there was a nod of agreement.

“Shit!” said Deaken.

The driver nodded and smiled, apparently now enjoying the encounter, a relief from the boring, lonely drive.

“Dakar?” said Deaken again, not offering an opinion this time. He was given another smiling, acquiescent nod.

“Which…?” started Deaken and then stopped, realizing the hopelessness. “Shit!” he repeated. Another nod.

He got in, slamming the door. It was movement, whatever the direction. At the first township or hamlet he would inquire again, get it right. Maybe find a taxi. Ten fifteen, he noted. The driver ground the gears into mesh with a shudder of cogs, snagging up through the gate in a ritual flourish which Deaken realized he was supposed to appreciate. When the speedometer needle registered seventy-five kilometres, the man hunched forward over the wheel, arms encompassing the rim.

Surely this hadn’t been the speed at which he had approached, horn blaring, fast enough to burn the tread off the tyres when he braked? Deaken stared at him and the Senegalese answered the look, smirking at what he believed to be admiration. There was nothing he could do, Deaken accepted. At least he was moving, he tried again to reassure himself, not stuck in some wasteland, being gradually dried in the sun.

The oblong of the rust-framed window gaped behind him; dust drifted in, fashioned in weaving snakes. Beyond he saw the load, a haphazard pile of vegetables and fruit. Deaken groped for an orange. It was green and unripened, hard under his hands. He gestured for permission to the driver, who shrugged and nodded. The fruit was as hard as its outer skin. Deaken bit into it, face twisting at the sourness, his mouth stung by it. He gulped at the orange, devouring the flesh almost without awareness, snatching back through the hole for another orange as soon as the first went. The rear window was not the only entry point for the dust. It seeped in wedges through the floor and ill-fitting doors and Deaken became aware of the vehicle’s age. The cab, he realized, was more than the driver’s workplace, it was his home, as well. Two jackets jostled from a peg immediately behind the man and, level with the back of his head, there was a shelf containing two shirts and a pair of shoes. Deaken looked down and saw that the driver was barefoot, skeletal legs jutting from the frayed ends of greased trousers. The plastic bench seat upon which he was sitting was covered with a plaid blanket which Deaken assumed was the man’s nighttime sleeping protection. Deaken eased forward uncomfortably.

Deaken followed the driver’s example, and wound down the side window to get some air. He tried resting his arm on the sill but hurriedly pulled back, the underside of his elbow burned by the heat of the metal. The plain stretched unbroken and unending, proof that the world was flat. They passed more gazelle and then a group of stunted piglike animals, which gazed back without fear but with ear-cocked curiosity. Around a distant anthill black birds wheeled in maypolelike flight; crows, Deaken thought, and maybe vultures. He wondered what the unseen carrion was. It could easily have been him.

Anxious to please, the driver groped beneath his feet with one hand for a small battered portable radio. One dial was missing and the plastic frame was supported by strips of tape and sticking plaster. The man extended an aerial and looked carelessly from the road while he selected a station. There was a blurred fuzz of interference from the unsuppressed engine, beneath which it was just possible to detect the monotonous ululating of what Deaken presumed was some local pop song.

The man said something in identification, nodding to the radio, and it was Deaken’s turn to smile and nod with a complete lack of understanding. The dashboard clock was smashed, robbed of its hour hand, and Deaken travelled with his left arm twisted across his lap so he could count away the time. It was exactly thirty minutes from the moment of his pickup to their arrival at the top of an incline above a small township huddled in a protective valley not more than a mile away. Deaken sat forward eagerly as they descended, taking note of the outlying fields and the irrigation stream and the needle spires of more than one church.

The French influence remained, with the place-name visible despite the chipped paint, secure on its rusting pole.

“Kaolack!” shouted Deaken in despair.

The driver smiled and nodded.

Carre had gone ashore from the Bellicose, ostensibly to pick up Deaken from the Royale, but really to limit the time with the captain, prolonging his absence as long as possible before returning. When he made his way onto the ship from the quayside, he saw the bowser cables being lifted away on their umbilical lines. Erlander was on the bridge wing.

“Where the hell’s our passenger?” he said.

“I sent a car,” said Carr6. “He wasn’t there.”

“We’re refuelled and revictualled,” said the captain.

“Should I check with Athens?” Carre welcomed the opportunity of getting away from the ship again.

Erlander shook his head. “I’ve already done so by radio. I’ve been told to make it an on-the-spot decision.”

There was a shout from the deck signalling the final freeing of the fuel lines, and Erlander led the way into his day cabin. He poured two glasses of gin, topping both lightly with water. Carre picked up the jug, adding another inch.

“What are you going to do?” said Carre”. He had never before earned as much on the side as he had from Makimber. He was unsure whether to hoard the dollars, in the expectation of the conversion rate going up, or change them at once. It was a lot of money to move at one time and risk alerting the currency controllers. And if that happened he would have to bribe his way out of trouble. He would shift just a little at first, he decided. It was a warm feeling, to be rich. It justified the present unease.

Erlander walked to the starboard side of his cabin, looking out over the quay. The early morning activity was slowing in the full heat of the day, the shore cranes bowed with inactivity, stevedores and harbour workers grouped in the warehouse shade or trailed to the liquor stalls. “Did this fellow tell you what he had to do?” he asked.

“Just sail with you.”

The captain turned back into the room. “What authorization did you see?”

“I told you.”

Erlander was a man who knew he sailed on the shaded side of every route, never properly believing the manifest listing on any voyage. It was a risk he took consciously, for the money which Levcos paid. Despite which, he was a careful man, running a clean, efficient ship with a reliable professional crew, never exposing himself to unnecessary danger. The preposterous sailing instructions and the presence of a man who had constantly to be duped with false positions and speeds constituted precisely the sort of conditions which Erlander had until now succeeded in avoiding. Which was why he was pleased the man had not turned up. And why he had lied to the agent about making contact with Athens. There would be contact, but not yet.

“We sail at noon,” said Erlander. “I’ll wait until then. But no longer.”

One hundred and twenty miles away Deaken was agreeing to double the price if the taxi driver could get him from Kaolack to Dakar in time.

Greening and Leiberwitz stood watching Levy and Karen walking in the garden and Leiberwitz said, “Look at them! Mooning like youngsters.”

Greening looked sympathetically at the bearded man. “It must be difficult for you, involved in the family,” he said.

“That’s not my first consideration.”

“What then?”

“I don’t think Levy is capable of leading us anymore.”

“He’s not let his relationship with the woman interfere so far,” said Greening.

“I don’t think he can be trusted anymore to make dispassionate decisions,” said Leiberwitz. “What are you saying?” “That it’s time someone else took over.”