Leopard Hunts in Darkness

Neither of them had heard him come or go. When she took her mouth away, Craig felt deprived and cheated, and reached for it again. She laid her fingers across his lips, restraining him for a moment, and her whisper was so husky that she had to clear her throat and start again. "Vt

"Let's go to your bedroom, darling," she said.

There was one awkward moment when he sat naked on the edge of the bed to remove his leg, but she knelt quickly in front of him, naked also, pushing his hands away and undid the straps herself. Then she bowed her head and kissed the neat hard pad of flesh at the extremity of his leg.

"Thank you," he said. "I'm glad you could do that."

"It's you," she said, "and part of you," and she kissed it again, and then ran her lips gently up to his knee and beyond.

He woke before she did, and lay with his eyes closed, surprised at the sense of wonder that possessed him, not knowing why, until suddenly he remembered and joy came upon him, and he opened his eyes and rolled his head, for an instant terrified that she would not be there but she was.

She had thrown her pillow off the bed, and kicked the sheet aside.

She was curled up likea baby, with her knees almost under her chin. The dawn light, filtered by the curtains, cast pearly highlights on her skin, and shaded the dips and hollows of her body. Her hair was loose, covering her face and undulating to each long slow breath she drew.

He lay very still so as not to disturb her and gloated over her, wanting to reach out, but denying himself, so as ake the ache of wanting more poignant, waiting for it to In to become unbearable. She must have sensed his attention, for she stirred and straightened out her legs, rolled over onto her back and arched in a slow voluptuous cat-like stretch.

He leaned across and with one finger lifted the shiny dark hair off her face. Her eyes swivelled towards him, came into focus, and she stared at him in cosmic astonishment. Then she crinkled her nose in a roguish grin.

"Hey, mister," she whispered, "you are something pretty damned special. Now I'm sorry I waited so long." And she reached out both brown arms towards him.

PP

Craig, however, did not share her regrets. He knew it had been perfectly timed even a day earlier would have been too soon. Later, he told her so as they lay clinging to each other, glued lightly together with their own perspiration.

"We learned to like each other first, that was the way I wanted it to be."

"You're right," she said, and drew back a little to look at his face so that her breasts made a delightfully obscene little sucking sound as they came unstuck from his chest. "I do like you, I really do."

"And I-" he started, but hastily she covered his lips with her fingertips.

"Not yet, Craig darling," she pleaded. "I don't want to hear that not yet."

"When?"he demanded.

"Soon, I think-" And then with more certainty. "Yes," she said, 'soon, and then I'll be able to say it back to you." he great estate -of King's Lynn seemed to have "waited as they had waited for this to happen again.

Long ago it had been hewn from the wilderness.

"The love of another man and woman had been the main inspiration in the building of it, and over the decades since then it had taken the love of the men and women who followed that first pair to4sustain and cherish it. They and the generations who ad followed them lay now in the walled cemetery on" the kopje behind the homestead, but while they had lived, King's Lynn had flourished. Just as it had sickened when it fell into the hands of uncaring foreigners in a far land, had been stripped and desecrated and deprived of the vital ingredient of love.

Even when Craig rebuilt the house and restocked the pastures, that vital element had been lacking still. Now at last love burgeoned on King's Lynn, and their joy in each other seemed to radiate out from the homestead on th e hill and permeate the entire estate, breathing life and the fecund promise of more life into the land.

The Matabele recognized it immediately. When Craig and Sally-Anne in the battered Land-Rover rode the red dust tracks that linked the huge paddocks, the Matabele women straightened up from the wooden mortars in which they were pounding maize, or turned stiffnecked under the enormous burden of firewood balanced upon their heads to call a greeting and watch them with a fond and knowing gaze. Old Joseph said nothing, but made up the bed in Craig's room with four pillows, put flowers on the table at the side of the bed that Sally-Anne had chosen, and placed four of his special biscuits on the early morning tea-tray when he brought it in to them each dawn.

For three days Sally-Anne restrained herself, and then one morning sitting up in bed, sipping tea, she told Craig, "As curtains, those make fine dish rags." She pointed a half eaten biscuit at the cheap unbleached calico that he had tacked over the windows.

"Can you do better?" Craig asked with concealed cunning, and she walked straight into the trap. Once she was involved in choosing curtains, she was immediately involved in everything else. From designing furniture for Joseph's relative, the celebrated carpenter, to build, to laying out the new vegetable garden and replanting the rose bushes and shrubs that had died of neglect.

Then Joseph entered the conspiracy by bringing her the proposed dinner menu for the evening. "Should it be roast tonight, Nkosazana, or chicken curry?"

"Nkosi Craig likes tripe," Sally-Anne had made this discovery during casual discussion. "Can you do tripe and onions?" Joseph beamed. "The old governor-general before the war, whenever he come to Kingi Lingi I make him tripe and onions, Nkosazana. He tell me "Very good, Joseph, best in world!""

"Okay, Joseph, tonight we'll have your "best-in-world tripe and onions"," she laughed, and only when Joseph formally handed over to her the pantry keys did she realize what a serious pronouncement that had been.

She was there at midnight when the first new calf was born on King's Lynn, a difficult birthing with the calf's head twisted back so that Craig had to soap his arm and thrust it up into the mother to free it while Shadrach and Hans Groenewald held the head and Sally-Anne held the lantern high to light the work.

When at last it came in a slippery rush, it was a heifer, pale beige and wobbly on its long ungainly legs. As soon as it began to nurse from its mother's udder, they could leave it to Shadrach and go home to bed.

"That was one of the most marvelous experiences of my life, darling. Who taught you to do that?"

"Bawu, my grandfather." He held her close to him in the dark bedroom. "You didn't feel sick?" 11 loved it, birth fascinates me."

"Like Henry the Eighth, I prefer it in the abstract," he chuckled.

"You rude boy," she whispered. "But aren't you too tired?"

"Are you?"

"No," she admitted. "I jint truthfully say that I am." She made one or Va half-hearted attempts to break out and leave.

had a telegram today, the "C. of A." on the Cessna is complete, and I should go down to Johannesburg to collect her."

"If you can wait two or three weeks or so, I'll come down with you. They are having a terrible drought in the south and stock prices are rock bottom. We could fly around the big ranches together and pick up a few bargains." So she let it pass, and the days telescoped into each other, filled for both of them with love and work work on the photographic book, on the new novel, on collating her field research material for the Wildlife Trust, on the final preparations for the opening of Zambezi Waters, and on the daily running and embellishing of King's Lynn.

With each week that passed, her will to resist the spell that Craig and King's Lynn were weaving about her weakened, the exigencies of her previous life faded, until one day she caught herself referring to the house on the hill as "home" and was only slightly shocked at herself.

A week later a registered letter was forwarded from her address in Harare. It was a formal application form for the renewal of her research grant from the Wildlife Trust.

Instead of filling it in and returning it immediately, she slipped it into her camera bag.

"I'll do it tomorrow," she promised herself, but deep in herself realized she had reached a crossroads in her life.

The prospect of flying about Africa alone with her only possessions a change of clothes and a camera, sleeping where she lay down and bathing when she could, was no longer as attractive as it had always been to her.

That night at dinner she looked around the huge almost bare dining-room, the new curtains its only glory, and touched the refectory table of Rhodesian teak that, under her guidance, Joseph's relative had fashioned and she anticipated the patina of use and care it would soon acquire. Then she looked past the burning candles to the man who sat opposite her and she was afraid and strangely elated. She knew she had made the decision.

They took their coffee onto the veranda and listened to the cicadas" whining in the jacaranda trees, and the squeak of the flying bats hunting below a yellow moon.

S he snuggled against his shoulder and said, "Craig, darling, it's time to tell you. I do love you so very dearly."

if raig wanted to rush into Bulawayo and take the magistrate's court by storm, but she restrained him laughingly.

"My God, you crazy man, it isn't like buying a pound of cheese. You can't just up and get married, just like that."

"Why not? Lots of people do."

"I don't," she said firmly. "I want it to be done properly." She did some counting on her fingers and pencilling on the calendar at the back of her notebook, and then decided, "February 16th."

"That's four months away," Craig groaned, but his protests were ridden down ruthlessly.

Joseph, on the other hand, was in full accord with Sally Anne plans for a formal wedding.

"You get married on Kingi Lingi, Nkosikazi." It was a statement rather than a question, and Sally Anne Sindebele was now good enough to recognize that she had been promoted from "little mistress" to 'great lady'.

"How many people?" Joseph demanded. "Two hundred, three hundred?" "I doubt we can raise that many," Sally-Anne demurred.

"When Nkosana Roly get married Kingi Lingi, we have four hundred, even Nkosi Smithy he come! "Joseph," she scolded him, you really are a frightful old snob, you know!" or Craig the pervading unhappiness that he had felt at Tungata's sentence slowly dissipated, swamped by all the excitement and activity at King's Lynn. In a few months he had all but put it from his mind, only at odd and unexpected moments his memory of his one-time friend barbed him. To the rest of the world, Tungata Zebiwe might have never existed. After the extravagant coverage by press and television of his trial, it seemed that a curtain of silence was drawn over him likea shroud.

Then abruptly, once again the name Tungata Zebiwe was blazed from every television screen and bannered on every front page across the entire continent.

Craig and Sally' Anne sat in front of the television set, appalled and disbelieving, as they listened to the first reports. When they ended, and the programme changed to a weather report, Craig stood up and crossed to the set. He switched it off and came back to her side, moving likea man who was still in deep shock from some terrible accident.

The two of them sat in silence in the darkened room, until Sally-Anne reached for his hand. She squeezed it hard, but her shudder was involuntary, it racked her whole body.

Those poor little girls they were babies. Can you imagine their terror?"

"I knew the Goodwins. They were fine people. They always treated their black people well, "Craig muttered.

"This proves as nothing else possibly could that they were right to lock him away likea dangerous animal." Her horror was beginning to turn to anger.

"I can't see what they could possibly hope to gain by this--2 Craig was still shaking his head incredulously, and Sally-Anne burst out.

"The whole country, the whole world must see them for what they are. Bloodthirsty, inhuman-'her voice cracked and became a sob. "Those babies oh Christ in heaven, I hate him. I wish him dead." "They used his name that doesn't mean Tungata ordered it, condoned it, or even knew about it." Craig tried to sound convincing.

"I hate him," she whispered. "I hate him for it." t's madness. All they can possibly achieve is to bring

_4 Shana troops sweeping through Matabeleland like the wrath of all the gods."

"The little one was only five years old." In her outrage and sorrow, Sally-Anne was repeating herself.

"Nigel Goodwin was a good man I knew him quite well, we were in the same special police unit during the war, I liked him." Craig went to the drinks table and poured two whiskies. "Please God, don't let it all start again. All the awfulness and cruelty and horror please God, spare us that." Ithough Nigel Goodwin was almost forty years of age, he had one of those beefy pink faces unaffected by the African sun that made him look likea lad.

His wife, Helen, was a thin, dark-haired girl, her plainness alleviated by her patent good nature and her sparkly, toffee-brown eyes.

The two girls were weekly boarders at the convent in Bulawayo. At eight years, Alice Goodwin had ginger hair and gingery freckles and, like her father, she was plump and pink. Stephanie, the baby, was five, really too young for boarding-school. However, because she had an elder sister at the convent, the Reverend Mother made an exception in her case. S4 was the pretty one, small and dark and chirpy as ajittle bird with her mother's bright eyes.

Each Friday morning, Nigel and Helen Goodwin drove in seventy-eight miles from the ranch to town. At one o'clock they picked up the girls from the convent, had lunch at the Selbourne Hotel, sharing a bottle of wine, and then spent the afternoon shopping. Helen restocked her groceries, chose material to make into dresses for herself and the girls, and then, while the girls went to F

watch a matinee at the local cinema, had her hair washed, cut and set, the one extravagance of her simple existence.

Nigel was on the committee of the Matabele Farmers" Union, and spent an hour or two at the Union's offices in leisurely discussion with the secretary and those other members who were in town for the day. Then he strolled down the wide sun-scorched streets, his slouch hat pushed back on his head, hands in pockets, puffing happily on a black briar, greeting friends and acquaintances both white and black, stopping every few yards for a word or a chat.

When he arrived back where he had left the Toyota truck outside the Farmers" Co-operative, his Matabele headman, Josiah, and two labourers were waiting for him.

They loaded the purchases of fencing and tools and spare parts and cattle medicines and other odds and ends into the truck, and as they finished, Helen and the girls arrived for the journey home.

"Excuse me, Miss," Nigel accosted his wife, "have you seen Mrs. Goodwin anywhere?" It was his little weekly joke, and Helen giggled delightedly and preened her new hairdo.

For the girls he had a bag of liquorice all sorts His wife protested, "Sweets are so bad for their teeth, dear," and Nigel winked at the girls and agreed, "I know, but just this once won't kill them." Stephanie, because she was the baby, rode in the truck cab between her parents, while Alice went in the back with Josiah and the other Matabele.

"Wrap up, dear, it will be dark before we get home," Helen cautioned her.

The first sixty-two miles were on the main road, and then they turned off on the farm track, and Josiah jumped down to open the wire gate and let them through.

"Home again," said Nigel contentedly, as he drove onto his own land. He always said that and Helen smiled and reached across to lay her hand on his leg.

"It's nice to be home, dear," she agreed.

The abrupt African night fell over them, and Nigel switched on the headlights. They picked up the eyes of the cattle in little bright points of light, fat contented beasts, the smell of their dung sharp and ammoniac al on the cool night air.

"Getting dry," Nigel grunted. "Need some rain."

"Yes, dear." Helen picked little Stephanie onto her lap, and the child cuddled sleepily against her shoulder.

"There we are," Nigel murmured. "Cooky has lit the lamps." He had been promising himself an electric generator for the last ten years, but there was always something else more important, so they were still on gas and paraffin. The lights of the homestead flickered a welcome at them between the stems of the acacia trees.

Nigel parked the truck beside the back veranda and cut the engine and headlights. Helen climbed down carrying Stephanie. The child was asleep now with her thumb in her mouth, and her skinny bare legs dangling.

Nigel went to the back of the truck and lifted Alice down.

"Longile, Josiah, you can go off now. We will unload the truck tomorrow morning, "he told his men. "Sleep wellP Holding Alice's hand, he followed his wife to the veranda, but before they reached it the dazzling beam of a powerful flashlight struck them and the family stopped in a small compact group.

"Who is it?" Nigel demanded irritably, shielding his eyes from the beam with' one hand, still holding Alice's hand with the other.

His eyes adjusted and he could see beyond the flashlight, and suddenly he felt sick with fear for his wife and his babies. There were three black men, dressed in blue denim jeans and jackets. Each of them carried an AK 47 rifle.

The rifles were pointed at the family group. Nigel glanced behind him quickly. There were other strangers, he was not sure how many. They had come out of the night, and under their guns Josiah and his two labourers were huddled fearfully.

Nigel thought of the steel gun safe in his office at the end of the veranda. Then he remembered that it was empty- At the end of the war, one of the first acts of the new black government had been to force the white farmers to hand in all their weapons. It didn't really matter, he realized. He could never have reached the safe, anyway.

"Who are they, Daddy? "Alice asked, her voice was small with fear. Of course she knew. She was old enough to remember the war days.

"Be brave, my darlings," Nigel said to all of them, and Helen drew closer to his bulk, still holding baby Stephanie in her arms.

The muzzle of a rifle was thrust into Nigel's back. His hands were pulled behind him, and his wrists bound together. They used galvanized wire. It cut into his flesh.

Then they took Stephanie from her mother's arms, and set her down.

Her legs were unsteady from sleep and she blinked like an owlet in the flashlight beam, still sucking her thumb. They wired Helen's hands behind her back.

She whimpered once as the wire cut in and then bit down on her lip. Two of them took the wire to the children.

"They are babies," Nigel said in Sindebele. "Please do not tie them, please do not hurt them."

"Be silent, white jackal," one of them replied in the same language and went down on one knee behind Stephanie.

"It's sore, Daddy," she began to cry. "He's hurting me.

Make him stop."

"You must be brave," Nigel repeated, stupidly and inadequately, hating himself. "You're a big girl now." The other man went to Alice.

"I won't cry," she promised. "I'll be brave, Daddy."

"That's my own sweet girl," he said, and the man tied her.

"Walk! commanded the one with the flashlight, who was clearly the leader of the group, and with the barrel of his automatic rifle prodded the children up the back steps onto the kitchen veranda.

Stephanie tripped and sprawled. With her hands tied behind her she could not regain her feet. She wriggled helplessly.

"You bastards," whispered Nigel. "Oh, you filthy bastards." One of them took a handful of the child's hair and lifted her to her feet. She stumbled, weeping hysterically, to where her sister stood against the veranda wall.

"Don't be a baby, Stephy," Alice told her. "It's just a game." But her voice quavered with her own terror, and her eyes in the lamplight were huge and brimming with tears.

They lined up Nigel and Helen beside the girls, and the flashlight played back and forth into each face in turn, blinding them so they Could not see what was happening out in the yard.

"Why are you doing this?" Nigel asked. "The war is over we have done you no harm." There was no reply at all, just a beam of brilliant light moving across their palekices, and the sound of Stephanie weeping, a racking *eous sobbing. Then there was the murmur of other Voices in the darkness, many subdued frightened voices, women and children and men.

"They have brought our people to watch," said Helen softly. "It's just like the war days. It's going to be an execution." She spoke so the girls could not hear her. Nigel could think of nothing to say. He knew she was right.

J wish I had told you how much I love you, more often," he said.

"That's all right," she whispered. "I knew all along." They could make out a throng of Matabele from the 11 farm village now, a dark mass of them beyond the glaring torch, and then the voice of the leader was raised in Sindebele.

"These are the white jackals that feed upon the land of the Matabele. These are the white offal that are in league with the Mashona killers, the eaters-of-dirt in Harare, the sworn enemies of the children of Lobengula-" The orator was working himself up into the killing frenzy. Already Nigel could see that the other men guarding them were beginning to sway and hum, losing themselves in that berserker passion where no reason exists.

The Matabele had a name for it, "the divine madness'.

When old Mzilikazi had been king, one million human beings had died from this divine madness.

"These white lickers of Mashona faces are the traitors who delivered Tungata Zebiwe, the father of our people, to the death camps of the Mashona," screamed the leader.

"I embrace you, my darlings, "Nigel Goodwin whispered.

Helen had never heard him say anything so tender before, and it was that, not fear, that made her begin to weep. She tried to force back the tears, but they ran down and dripped from her chin.

"What must we do with them?" howled the leader.

"Kill the mP cried one of his own men, but the massed farm Matabele were silent in the darkness.

"What must we do with the mP the question was repeated.

This time the leader leapt down from the veranda and shouted it into the faces of the farm people, still they were silent.

"What must we do with them?"Again the question, and this time the sound of blows, the rubbery slap of a rifle barrel against black flesh.

"What must we do with them?" The same question for the fourth time.

"Kill them! An uncertain terrified response, and more blows.

"Kill them! The cry was taken up.

"Kill the mP "Abantwana kamina!" A woman's voice, Nigel recognized it as that of fat old Martha, the girls" nanny. "My babies," she cried, but then her voice was lost in the rising chorus.

"Kill them! Kill them!" as the divine madness spread.

Two men, both denim-clad, stepped into the torch light. They seized Nigel by his arms and turned him to face the wall, before forcing him to his knees.

"The leader handed the flashlight to one of his men and he took the pistol from the belt of his jeans, and pulled back the slide forcing a round into the chamber. The breech made a sharp snapping rattle. He put the muzzle of the pistol to the back of Nigel's head and fired a single shot. Nigel was thrown forward onto his face. The contents of his skull were dashed against the white wall, and then began to run down it in ii jellylike stream to the floor.

His feet were still kicking and dancing as they forced Helen down to her knees facing the wall beside her husband's corpse.

"Mummy!" screamed Alice as the next pistol bullet tore out through her motherkforehead and her skull collapsed inwards. Alice's pafttic little show of courage was over.

Her legs gave way, and she crumpled to the veranda floor. With a soft spluttery sound her bowels voided involuntarily.

The leader stepped up to her. Her forehead was almost touching the floor. Her gingery curls had parted, exposing the back of her neck. The leader extended his right arm full length, and touched the muzzle of the pistol to the tender white skin at the nape. His arm jerked to the recoil and the shot was muffled to a jarring thud. Blue tendrils of gunsmoke spiralled upwards in the beam of the flashlight.

Little Stephanie was the only one who struggled, until the leader clubbed her with the barrel of the pistol. Even then she wriggled and kicked, lying on the veranda floor in the spreading puddle of her sister's blood. The leader placed his foot between her shoulder blades to hold her still for the shot. The bullet came out through Stephanie's temple just in front of her right ear, and it gouged a hole not much larger than a thimble in the concrete of the veranda floor. The hole filled swiftly with the child's blood.

The leader stooped and dipped his forefinger into the cup of dark blood, and with it wrote on the white veranda wall in large erratic letters, "TUNGATA ZEBIWE LIVES." Then he jumped down off the veranda and, likea leopard, padded silently away into the night. His men followed him in Indian file at an easy swinging trot.

give you my solemn promise," said the prime minister, "these so-called dissidents will be destroyed, completely destroyed." His eyes behind the lenses of his spectacles had a steely, blind look. The poor quality of the television projection added haloes of ghost silhouettes to his head, but did not diminish his anger that seemed to spillover from the set and flood the living-room of King's Lynn.

"I've never seen him like that," said Craig.

"He's usually such a cold fish," Sally-Anne agreed.

"I have ordered the army and the police force to move in to hunt down and apprehend the perpetrators of this terrible outrage. We will find them, and their supporters, and they will feel the full force of the people's anger. We will not endure these dissidents."

"Good for him," Sally Anne nodded. "I can't say I've ever liked him very much until now."

"Darling, don't be too happy about it," Craig cautioned her. "Remember this is Africa, not America or Britain.

This land has a different temper. Words have a different meaning here words like "apprehend" and "hunt down"."

"Craig, I know that your sympathy is always with the Matabele, but this time surely-"

"All right," he held up one hand in agreement, "I admit it. The Matabele are special, my family has always lived with them, we've beaten and exploited them, we've fought them and slaughtered them and been slaughtered by them in return. Yet, also, we have cherished and honoured them and come to know them and, yes, to love them. I don't know the Mashona. They are secretive and cold, clever and tricky. I can't speak their language, and I don't trust them. That's why I choose to live in Matabeleland."

"You are saying the Matebele are saints that they are incapable of committing an atrocity like this?" She was getting irritable with him now, her tone sharpening, and he was quick to placate her.

"Good God, no! They are as cruel as any other tribe in Africa, and a hell of a lot more warlike than most. In the old days when they raided a foreign tribe, they used to toss the infants in the air and catch them on the points of their assegais, and throw the 4d women in the watch-fires and laugh to see them buip. Cruelty has a different value in Africa. If you live here you have to understand that from the beginning." He paused and smiled. "Once I was discussing political philosophy with a Matabele, an ex guerrilla and I explained the concept of democracy. His reply was, "That might work in your country, but it doesn't work here. It doesn't work here." Don't you see? That's the crux. Africa makes and keeps her own rules, and I lay you a million dollars to a pinch of elephant dung that we're going to see a few pretty things in the weeks ahead that you wouldn't see in Pennsylvania or Dorset! When Mugabe says "destroy", he doesn't mean "take into custody and process under the laws of evidence". He's an African and he means precisely that destroy!" That was on the Wednesday, and when Friday came round it was market day at King's Lynn, the day to go into Bulawayo for shopping and socializing. Craig and Sally Anne left early on that Friday morning. The new five-ton truck followed them, filled with Matabele from the ranch, taking advantage of the free ride into town for the day.

They were dressed in their best, and singing with excitement.

Craig and Sally-Anne came up against the road-block just before they reached the crossroads at Thabas Indunas.

The traffic was backed up for a hundred yards, and Craig could see that most of the vehicles were being turned back.

"Hold on!" he told Sally-Anne, left her in the Land Rover and jogged up to the head of the line of parked vehicles.

The road-block was not a casual temporary affair. There w re avy machine-guns in sandbagged emplacements on both sides of the highway, and light machine-guns set back in depth beyond it to cover a breakthrough by a speeding vehicle.

The actual barricade was of drums filled with concrete and spiked metal plates to puncture pneumatic tyres, and the guards were from the Third Brigade in their distinctive burgundy berets and silver cap-badges. Their striped camo ullage battle-jackets gave them the tigerish air of jungle cats.

"What is happening, Sergeant? "Craig asked one of them.

"The road is closed, mambo," the man told him politely.

"Only military permit-holders allowed to pass."

"I have to get into town."

AOINE

"Not today," the man shook his head. "Bulawayo is not a good place to be today." As if to confirm this, there was a faint popping sound from the direction of the town. It sounded like green twigs in a fire, and the hair on Craig's forearms lifted instinctively. He knew that sound so well, and it brought nightmarish memories from the war days crowding back. It was the sound of distant automatic rifle-fire.

"Go back home, mambo," said the sergeant in a kindly tone. "This is not your indaba any more." Suddenly Craig was very anxious to get the truckload of his people safely back to King's Lynn.

He ran back to the Land-Rover, and swung it out of the line of parked vehicles in a hard 180-degree turn.

"What is it, Craig?"

"I think it has started," he told her grimly, and thrust the accelerator flat to the floorboards.

They met the King's Lynn truck barrelling merrily along towards them, the women singing and clapping, their dresses fluttering brightly in the wind. Craig flagged them down, and jumped up onto the running, board Shadrach, in the cast-off grey suit that Craig had given him, was sitting up in his place of honour beside the driver.

"Turn around," Craig ordered. "Go back to Kingi Lingi.

There is big trouble. Nobody must leave Kingi Lingi until it is over."

"Is it the Mashona. sol dit rs "Yes," Craig told h rif "The Third Brigade."

"Jackals and sons of dung-eating jackals," said Shadrach, and spat out of the open window.

o say that thousands of innocent persons have been killed by the state security forces is a nonsense-" The Zimbabwean minister of justice looked likea successful stockbroker in his dark suit and white shirt. He smiled blandly out of the television screen, his face shining with a light sheen of sweat from the brute arc lamps which only enhanced the coaly blackness of his skin. "One or two civilians have been killed in the crossfire between the security forces and the outlaw Matebele dissidents but thousands! Ha, ha, ha!" he chuckled jovially. "If thousands have been killed, then I wish somebody would show me the bodies I know nothing about them."

"Well," Craig switched it off. "That's all you are going to get from Harare." He checked his wrist-watch. "Almost eight o'clock, let's see what the BBC has to say." During the rule of the Smith regime, with its draconian censorship, every thinking man in central Africa had made sure he had access to a short-wave radio receiver. It was still a good rule to follow. Craig's set was a Yaesu Musen, and he got the Africa service of the BBC on 2171 kilohertz.

"The Zimbabwe government has expelled all foreign journalists from Matabeleland. The British High Commission has called upon the prime minister of Zimbabwe to express Her Majesty's government's deep concern at the reports of atrocities being committed by security forces-" Craig switched to Radio South Africa, and it came through sharp and clear' the arrival of hundreds of illegal refugees across the northern border from Zimbabwe. The refugees are all members of the Matabele tribe. A spokesman for one group described a massacre of villagers and civilians that he had witnessed. "They are killing everybody," he said. "The women and the children, even the chickens and the goats." Another refugee said, "Do not s end us back. The soldiers will kill us."" Craig searched the bands and found the Voice of America.

"The leader of the ZAPU party, the Matabele faction of Zimbabwe, Mr. Joshua Nkomo, has arrived in the neighbouring state of Botswana after fleeing the country. "They shot my driver dead," he told our regional reporter.

"Mugabe wants me dead. He's out to get me."

"With the recent imprisonment and detention of all other prominent members of the ZAPU party, Mr. Nkomo's departure from Zimbabwe leaves the Matabele people without a leader or a spokesman.

"In the meantime, the government of Mr. Robert Mugabe has placed a total news blackout over the western part of the country, all foreign journalists have been expelled, and a request by the international Red Cross to send in observers has been refused."

"It's all so familiar," Craig muttered. "I even have the same sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach as I listen to it." he Monday was Sally-Anne's birthday. After breakfast, they drove across to Queen's Lynn together to fetch her present. Craig had left it in the care of Mrs. Groenqvald, the overseer's wife, to preserve the secrecy and surp4ise.

"Oh, Craig, it's beautiful."

"Now you have two of us to keep you at King's Lynn," he told her.

Sally-Anne lifted the honey-coloured puppy in both hands and kissed his wet nose, and the puppy licked her back.

"He's a Rhodesian lion dog," Craig told her, "or now I suppose you'd call him a Zimbabwean lion dog." The puppy's skin was too big for him. It hung down in His back was crested in the distinctive ridge of his breed.

wrinkles over his forehead that gave him a worried frown.

"Look at his paws!" Sally-Anne cried. "He's going to be a monster. What shall I call him?" Craig declared a public holiday to mark the occasion of Sally-Anne's birth. They took the puppy and a picnic lunch down to the main dam below the homestead, and lay on a rug under the trees at the water's edge, and tried to find a name for the puppy. Sally-Anne vetoed Craig's suggested "Do"-.

The black-faced weaver birds fluttered and shrieked and hung upside-down from the basket-shaped nests above their heads, and Joseph had put a cold bottle of white wine in the basket. The puppy chased grasshoppers until he collapsed exhausted on the rug beside Sally-Anne.

They finished the wine, and when they made love on the rug, Sally-Anne whispered seriously, "Shh! Don't wake the PUPPY!" They drove back up the hills and Sally-Anne said suddenly, "We haven't spoken about the troubles all day."

"Don't let's spoil our record."

"I'm going to call him Buster." 419MYP "The first puppy I was ever given I called Buster." They gave Buster his supper in the bowl labelled "Dog" Craig had bought for him, and then made a bed in an empty wine crate near the Ago stove.

They were both happily tired and that evening left the book and the photographs and went to bed immediately after their own meal.

raig woke to the sound of gun-fire. His residual war eflexes hurled him from the bed before he was fully awake. It was automatic rifle-fire, short bursts, ve lose, he noted instinctively, short bursts meant good, trained riflemen. They were down by the farm village, or the workshop. He judged the distance.

He found his leg and clinched the strap, fully awake now, and his first thought was for Sally-Anne. Keeping low, beneath the sill level of the windows, he rolled back to the bed and dragged her down beside him.

She was naked, and muzzy with sleep.

"What is it?"

"Here," he whipped her gown off the foot of the bed.

"Get dressed, but keep down." While she shrugged into the gown, he was trying to marshal his thoughts. There were no weapons in the house, except the kitchen knives and a small hand axe for chopping firewood on the back veranda. There was no sandbagged fallback position, no defensive perimeter of wire and floodlights, no radio transmitter none of even the most elementary -de fences with which every farm homestead had once been provided.

Another burst of rifle, fire and somebody screamed a woman the faint scream abruptly cut off.

"What's happening? Who are they?" Sally-Anne's voice was level and crisp. She was awake and unafraid. He felt a little lift of pride for her. re they dissidents?"

"I don't know, but we aren't going to wait around to find out," he told her grimly.

He glanced up at the new highly inflammable thatch overhead. Their best chance was to get out of the house and into the bush. To do that, they needed a diversion.

"Stay here," he ordered. "Get your shoes on and be ready to run. I'll be back in a minute." He rolled under the window to the wall, and came to his feet. The bedroom door was unlocked and he darted into the passage. He wasted ten seconds on the telephone J. he knew they would have cut the wires, and that was confirmed immediately by the dead echoless void in the earpiece. He dropped it dangling on the cord and ran through to the kitchens.

Hi There was only one diversion he could think of light.

I!;.

He hit the remote-control switch of the diesel generator, and there was the faint ripple of sound from the engine room across the yard and the overhead bulbs glowed yellow and then flared into full brilliance. He tore open the fuse box above the control-board, tripped out the house-lights, and then switched on the veranda and front garden lights.

h That would leave the back of the house in darkness. They would make their break that way, he decided, and it would have to be quick. The attackers hadn't hit the house yet, but they could only be seconds away.

He ran back out of the kitchen, paused at the door of the lounge, and glanced through it to check the lighting in the front garden and veranda. The lawns were a peculiarly lush green in the artificial light, the jacaranda trees domed over them like the roof of a cathedral. The firing had ceased, but down near the labourers" village a woman was keening, that doleful sound of African mourning- It made his skin creep.

Craig knew that they would be coming up the hill already, and he was turning away to go back to Sally-Anne when he caught the flicker of movement at the edge of the light and he narrowed his eyes and tried to identify it. To know who was attacking would give him some small advantage, but he was wasting precious seconds.

The movement was a running man, coming up towards the house. A black man, naked no, he was wearing a loin-cloth. Not really running, but staggering and weaving !I! drunkenly. In the veranda lights half his body glinted as I.4 though it had been freshly oiled, and then Craig realized R that it was blood. The man was painted with his own blood, and it was falling in scattered drops from him like water from the coat of a retriever when it comes ashore with the duck in its jaws.

Then a more intense shock of horror. Craig realized that it was old Shadrach, and unthinkingly went to help him. He kicked open the french doors of the lounge, went out onto the veranda at a run, and vaulted the low half wall He caught Shadrach in his arms just as he was about to fall, and lifted him off his feet. He was surprised at how light was the old man's body. Craig carried him at a single bound onto the veranda and crouched with him below the low wall.

Shadrach had been hit in the upper arm, just above the elbow. The bone had shattered, and the limb hung by a ribbon of flesh. Shadrach held it to his breast likea nursing infant.

"They are coming," he gasped at Craig. "You must run.

They are killing our people, they will kill you also." It was miraculous that the old man could speak, let alone move and run with such a wound. Crouching below the wall he ripped a strip of cotton from his loincloth with his teeth and started to bind it around his own arm above the wound. Craig pushed his hand away and tied the knot for him.

"You must run, little master," and before Craig could prevent him, the old man rolled to his feet and disappeared into the darkness beyond-4he floodlights.

"He risked his Iifeao warn. me." Craig looked after him for a second, and then roused himself and, doubled over, ran back into the house.

Sally-Anne was where he had left her, crouched below the window. Light fell through it in a yellow square, and he saw that she had tied back her hair and pulled on a T-shirt and shorts, and was lacing her soft, leather, training shoes.

"Good girl." He knelt beside her. "Let's go."

F 11111

"Buster," she replied. "My puppy!"

"For God's sake!"

"We can't leave him!" She had that stubborn took that he had already come to know so well.

"I'll carry you if I have to," he warned fiercely, and raising himself quickly he risked a last glance over the window-sill.

The lawns and gardens were still brightly lit. There were the dark shapes of men coming up from the valley, armed men in disciplined extended order. For a moment he could not believe what he was seeing, and then he sagged with relief.

"Oh, thank you, God!" he whispered. He found that reaction had set in already. He felt weak and shivery, and he took Sally' Anne in his arms and hugged her.

"It's all right now," he told her. "It's going to be all right." "What has happened?"

"The security forces have arrived," he said. He had recognized the burgundy-coloured berets and silver cap badges of the men closing in across the lawns. "The Third Brigade is here we will be all right now." They went out onto the front veranda to greet their rescuers, Sally-Anne carrying the yellow puppy in her arms, and Craig with his arm about her shoulders.

"I am very glad to see you and your men, Sergeant," Craig greeted the noncommissioned officer who led the advancing line of troopers.

"Please go inside." The sergeant made a gesture with his rifle, imperative if, not directly threatening. He was a tall man, with long sinewy limbs, his expression was cold and neutral, and Craig felt his relief shrink. Something was wrong. The line of troopers had closed likea net around the homestead, while skirmishers came forward in pairs, covering each other, the classical tactics of the street fighter , and they went swiftly into the house, breaking through windows and side doors, sweeping the interior.

There was a crash of breaking glass at the rear of the house.

It was a destructive search.

"What's going on, Sergeant?" Craig's anger resurfaced, and this time the tall sergeant's gesture was unmistakably hostile.

Craig and Sally-Anne backed off before him into the dining-room and stood in the centre of the room beside the teak refectory table, facing the threatening rifle, Craig holding her protectively.

Two troopers slipped in through the front door, and reported to the sergeant in a gabble of Shana that Craig could not follow. The sergeant acknowledged with a nod and gave them an order. They spread out obediently along the wall, their weapons turned unmistakably onto the dishevelled couple in the centre of the room.

"VAlere are the lights?" the sergeant asked, and when Craig told him, he went to the switch and white light flooded the room.

"What is going on here, Sergeant?" Craig repeated, angry and uncertain and starting to be afraid for Sally-Anne again.

The sergeant ignored the question, and strode to the door. He called to one of the troopers on the lawn, and the man came at a run. He carried a portable radio transmitter strapped on his back, with the scorpion-tail aerial sticking up over his shoulder. The sergeant spoke softly into the handset ai' the radio and then came back into the room. 0 now in an unm They waited oving tableau. To Craig it seemed like an hour passed in silence, but it was less than five minutes before the sergeant cocked his head slightly, listening. Craig heard it, the beat of an engine, in a different tempo from that of the diesel generator. It firmed, and Craig knew that it was a Land-Rover.

It came up the driveway, headlights swept the windows, brakes squeaked and gravel crunched. The engine was cut, doors banged and then there were the footsteps of a group of men crossing the veranda.

General Peter Fungabera led his staff in through the french doors.

He wore his beret pulled down over one eye and a matching silk scarf at his throat. Except for the pistol in its webbing holster at his side, he was armed only with the leather-covered swagger, stick

Behind him Captain Nbebi was tall and round shouldered his eyes inscrutable behind the steel-rimmed spectacles. He carried a leather map-case in his hand, and a machine pistol on a sling over his shoulder.

"Peter!" Craig's relief was tempered by wariness. It was all too contrived, too controlled, too menacing. "Some of my people have been killed. My induna is out there somewhere, badly wounded."

"There have been many enemy casualties," Peter Fungabera nodded.

Enemy? "Craig was puzzled.

"Dissidents," Peter nodded again. "Matabele dissidents." "Dissidents?"

Craig stared at him. "Shadrach a dissident?

That's crazy he's a simple, uneducated cattleman, and doesn't give a darrin for politics-"

"Things are often not what they seem." Peter Fungabera pulled back the chair at the head of the long table and placed one foot on it, leaning an elbow on his knee. Timon Nbebi placed the leather map-case on the table in front of him and stood back, in a position of guard behind his shoulder, holding the machine pistol by the grip.

"Will somebody please tell me what in the hell is happening here, Peter?" Craig was exasperated and nervous.

"Somebody attacked my village they've killed some of my people. God alone knows how many why don't you get after them?"

"The shooting is over," Peter Fungabera told him. "We have cleaned out the vipers" nest of traitors that you were breeding on this colonial-style estate of yours."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Craig was now truly flustered. "You cannot be serious!"

"Serious?" Peter smiled easily. He straightened up and placed both feet back on the floor. He walked across to face them. "A puppy, "he was still smiling. "How adorable." He took Buster from Sally-Anne's arms before she realized his intentions. He strolled back to the head of the table, fondling the little animal, scratching behind its ear.

it was still half-asleep and it made little whimpering sounds, nuzzling against him, instinctively searching for its mother's teat.

"Serious?" Peter repeated the original question. "I want to impress upon you just how serious I am." He dropped the puppy onto the stone-flagged floor. It fell on its back, and lay stunned. He placed his boot upon its chest and crushed it with his full weight. The puppy screamed once only as its chest collapsed.

"That is how serious I am." He was no longer smiling.

"Your lives are as valuable to me as this animal was." Sally-Anne made a small moaning sound and turned away, burying her face. in Craig's chest. She heaved with nausea, and Craig could feel her fighting to control it.

Peter Fungabera kicked the soft yellow corpse into the fireplace and sat down.

"We have wasted enough time on the theatricals," he said, and opened the leather map-case, spreading the documents on the table t front of him.

"Mr. Mellow, you kave been acting as an agent provocateur in the pay of the notorious American CIA-"

"That's a bloody lie! Craig shouted, and Peter ignored the outburst.

"Your local control was the American agent Morgan Oxford at the United States Embassy, while your central control and paymaster was a certain Henry Pickering, who masquerades as a senior official of the World Bank in New York. He recruited both you and Miss Jay"

"That's not true!"

"Your remuneration was sixty thousand dollars per annum, and your mission was to set up a centre of subversion in Matabeleland, which was financed by CIA monies channelled to you in the form of a loan from a CIA-controlled subsidiary of the World Bank the sum allocated was five million dollars."

"Christ, Peter, that's nonsense, and you know it."

"During the rest of this interrogation, you will address me as either "Sir" or "General Fungabera", is that clear to you?" He turned away to listen as there was sudden activity outside the french doors. It sounded like the arrival of a convoy of light trucks, from which more troops were disembarking with orders being called in Shana. Through the glass doors, Craig saw a dozen troopers carrying heavy crates up onto the veranda.

Peter Fungabera glanced enquiringly at Timon Nbebi, who nodded in confirmation of the unspoken question.

"Right!" Peter Fungabera turned back to face Craig. "We can continue. You opened negotiations with known Matebele traitors, using your fluent knowledge of the language and the character of these intractable people-"

"You can't name one, because there aren't any." Peter Fungabera. nodded to Timon Nbebi. He shouted an order.

A man was led into the room between two troopers. He was barefooted, dressed only in ragged khaki shorts, and was emaciated to the point where his head appeared grotesquely huge. His pate was shaven and covered with lumps and fresh scabs, his ribs latticed with the scars of beatings probably the wicked hippo-hide whips called siamboks had been used on him.

"Do you know this white man?" Peter Fungabera demanded of him. The man stared at Craig. His eyes had an opaque dullness, as though they had been sprinkled with dust.

ill O

"I've never seen him-" Craig started, and then broke off as he recognized him. It was Comrade Dollar, the youngest and most truculent of the men from Zambezi Waters.

"Yes?" Peter Fungabera invited, smiling again. "What were you about to say, Mr. Mellow?"

"I want to see somebody from the British High Commission," Craig said, "and Miss Jay would like to make a telephone call to the United States Embassy."

"Of course," Peter Fungabera nodded. "All in good time, but first we must complete what we have already begun." He swung back to Comrade Dollar. "Do you know the white man?" Comrade Dollar nodded. "He gave us money."

"Take him away," Peter Fungabera ordered. "Care for him well, and give him something to eat. Now, Mr. Mellow, do you still deny any contact with the subversives?" He did not wait for a reply, but went on smoothly, "You built up an arsenal of weapons on this estate to be used against the elected people's government in a coup d'gtat which would place a pro-American dictator-"

"No," Craig said quietly. "I have no weapons." Peter Fungabera sighed. "Your denials are pointless and tiresome." Then to the tall Shana sergeant, "Bring the two of them." He led the way onto the wide veranda, to where his men had stacked the crates.

"Open them," he commanded, and his men knocked back the clips and lifwd the lids.

Craig recognized the weapons that were packed into them. They were American Armalite 5.56 men all 18 automatic rifles. Six to the case, and brand-new, still in their factory grease.

"These are nothing to do with me." Craig was at last able to deny it with vehemence.

"You are testing my patience." Peter Fungabera turned to Timon Nbebi. "Fetch the other white man." Hans Groenewald, Craig's overseer, was dragged from the cab of one of the parked trucks, and led to the veranda.

His hands were manacled behind his back, and he was terrified. His broad tanned face seemed to have deflated into heavy wrinkles and folds of loose skin likea diseased bloodhound, and his dark suntan had faded to the colour of creamed coffee. His eyes were bloodshot and rheumy, like those of a drunkard.

"You stored these weapons in the tractor sheds on this ranch?" Peter Fungabera asked, and Groenewald's reply was inaudible.

"Speak up, man."

"Yes I stored them, sit."

"On whose orders?" Groenewald looked piteously at Craig, and suddenly Craig's heart was sheathed in ice, and the cold spread down into his belly and his loins.

"Whose orders?" Peter Fungabera repeated patiently.

"Mr. Mellow's orders, sit."

"Take him away." As the guards led him back to the track, Groenewald's head was screwed around, his eyes still on Craig's face, his expression harrowed. Suddenly he shouted, "I'm sorry, Mr. Mellow, I've got a wife and kids-" One of the guards swung the butt of his rifle into Groenewald's stomach, just below the ribs. Groenewald gasped, and doubled over. He would have fallen but they seized his arms and swung him up into the cab. The driver of the truck started the engine and the big machine roared away down the hill.

Peter Fungabera led them back into the dining-room and resumed his seat at the head of the table. While he rearranged and studied the papers from the map, case he ignored Craig and Sally-Anne. They, were forced to stand against the opposite wall, a trooper on each side of them,

JW

and the silence stretched out. Even though Craig realized this silence was deliberate, he wanted to break it, to shout out his innocence, to protest against the web of lies and half-truths and distortions in which they were being slowly enmeshed.

Beside him Sally-Anne stood upright, gripping her own hands at waist level to prevent them trembling. Her face had a sick greenish hue, under a light sheen of sweat, and she kept turning her eyes towards the fireplace where the puppy's crushed carcass lay likea discarded toy.

At last Peter Fungabera pushed the papers aside and rocked back in his chair, tapping lightly on the table-top with his swagger, stick

"A hanging matter," he said, 4a capital offence for both you and Miss Jay---2

"it has nothing to do with her." Craig put a protective arm around her shoulders.

"Women's lower organs are less able to withstand the downward shock of the hangman's drop," Peter Fungabera remarked. "The effect can be quite bizarre or at least, so I am told." It conjured up an image that sickened Craig, saliva of nausea flooded his mouth. He swallowed it down and could not speak.

"Fortunately, it need not come to that. The choice will be yours." Peter rolled the swagger-stick lightly between his fingers. Craig found himself staring fixedly at Peter's hands.

The palms and insides of his long powerful fingers were a soft delicate pink.

J believe that you are the dupes of your imperialistic masters." Peter smiled again. "I'm going to let you go." Both their heads jerked up, and they watched his face.

"Yes, you look disbelieving, but I mean it. Personally I have grown quite fond of both of you. To have you hanged would give me no special pleasure. Both of you possess artistic talents which it would be wasteful to terminate, and from now on you will be unable to do any further harm." Still they were silent, beginning to hope, and yet fearful, sensing that it was all part of a cruel cat's game.

"I am prepared to make you an offer. If you make a clean breast of it, a full and unreserved confession, I will have YOU escorted to the border, with your travel documents and any readily portable possessions and items of value you choose. I will have you set free, to go and trouble me and my people no more." He waited, smiling, and the swagger, stick went tap tap tap on the table-top, likea dripping faucet. It distracted Craig. He found himself unable to think clearly. It had all Ell happened too swiftly. Peter Fungabera had kept him off balance, shifting and changing his attack. He had to have time to pull himself together, and to begin thinking clearly and logically again.

"A confession?" he blurted. What kind of confession?

One of your exhibitions before a people's court? A public humiliation?"

"No, I don't think we need go that far," Peter Fungabera assured him. "I will need only a written statement from you, an account of your crimes and the machinations of your masters. The confession will be properly witnessed, and then you will be escorted to the border and set at liberty. All very straightforward, simple and, if I may be allowed to say so, very civilized and humane."

"You will, of course, prepare my confession for me to sign?" Craig asked bitterly, and Peter Fungabera chuckled.

"How very perceptive of you." He selected one of the documents from the pile in front of him. "Here it is. You need only fill in the date and sign it." Even Craig was surprised at that.

J "You've had it typed already?" Nobody replied, and Captain Nbebi brought the document to him.

"Please read it, Mr. Mellow,"he invited.

There were three typewritten foolscap sheets, much of them filled with denunciations of his "imperialistic masters" and the hysterical cant of the extreme left. But in this mishmash, like plums in a stodgy pudding, were the hard facts of which Craig stood accused.

He read through it slowly, trying to force his numbed brain to function clearly, but it was all somehow dreamlike and unreal, seeming not really to affect him personally until he read the words that jerked him fully conscious again.

The words were so familiar, so well remembered, and they burned like concentrated acid into the core of his being.

J fully admit that by my actions I have proved myself to be an enemy of the state and the people of Zhnbabwe." It was the exact wording used in another document he had signed, and suddenly he was able to see the design behind it all.

"King's Lynn," he whispered, and he looked up from the typewritten confession at Peter Fungabera. "That's what it's all about. You are after King's Lynn!" There was silence, except for the tap of the swagger stick on the table-top. Peter Fungabera did not miss a beat with it, and he was still smiling.

"You had it all worke4ut from the very beginning. The surety for my loan you wrote in that clause." The numbness ahJ lethargy sloughed away, and Craig felt his anger rising again within him. He threw the confession on the floor. Captain Nbebi retrieved it, and stood with it held awkwardly in both hands. Craig found himself shaking with rage. He took a step forward towards the elegant figure seated before him, his hands reaching out involuntarily, but the tall Shana sergeant barred his way with the barrel of his rifle held across Craig's chest.

rill

"You bloody swine!" Craig hissed at Peter, and there was a little white froth of saliva on his lower lip. "I want the police, I want the protection of the law."

"Mr. Mellow," Peter Fungabera replied evenly, 'in Matabeleland, I am the law. It is my protection that you are being offered."

"I won't do it. I won't sign that piece of dung. I will go to hell first."

"That might be arranged," Peter Fungabera mused softly, and then persuasively, "I really do urge you to put aside these histrionics and bow to the inevitable. Sign the paper and we can dispense with any further nastiness." Crude words crowded to Craig's lips, and with an effort he resisted using them, not wanting to degrade himself in front of them.

"No," he said instead. "I'll never sign that thing. You'll have to kill me first."

"I give you one last chance to change your mind." "No. Never! Peter Fungabera swivelled in his chair towards the tall sergeant.

"I give you the woman," he said. "You first and then your men, one at a time until they have all had their turn. Here, in this room, on this table." Christ, you aren't human," Craig blurted, and tried to hold Sally-Anne, but the troopers seized him from behind and hurled him back against the wall. One of them pinned him there with the point of a bayonet against his throat.

The other twisted Sally-Anne's wrist up between her shoulder blades and held her in front of the sergeant. She began to struggle wildly, but the trooper lifted her until just the toes of her running shoes touched the stone-flagged floor, and her face contorted with pain.

The sergeant was expressionless, neither leering nor making any obscene gesture. He took the front of Sally Anne T-shirt in both hands, and tore it open from neck to waist. Her breasts swung out. They were very white and tender-looking, their pink tips seemed sensitive and vulnerable.

"I have one hundred and fifty men," Peter Fungabera remarked. "It will be some time before they have all finished." The sergeant hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her shorts and yanked, them down. He let them fall in a tangle around her ankles. Craig strained forward, but the point of the bayonet pierced the skin at his throat. A few drops of blood dribbled down his shirtfront. Sally-Anne tried to cover the dark triangular mound of her pudenda with her free hand. It was a pathetically ineffectual gesture.

"I know how fiercely even a so-called white liberal like you resents the thought of black flesh penetrating his worn an." Peter Fungabera's tone was almost conversational.

"It will be interesting to see just how many times you will allow it to hap pi The sergeant and the trooper lifted Sally-Anne between them and laid her on her back on the refectory table. The sergeant freed the silk-shorts that bound her ankles but left the running shoes on her feet, and the tatters of her shirt around her upper body.

Expertly they pulled her knees up against her chest and then forced them down, tucking them under her armpits.

They must have done this often before. She was helpless, doubled over, wide op and completely defenceless. Every man in the room.wls staring into her body's secret depths.

The sergeant began to unbuckle his webbing belt with his free hand.

"Craig!" Sally-Anne screamed, and Craig's body bucked involuntarily as though to the stroke of a whip.

"I'll sign it," he whispered. "Just let her go, and I'll sign it." Peter Fungabera gave an order in Shana, and immediately they released Sally-Anne. The trooper stood back and the sergeant helped her to her feet. Politely, he handed her back her shorts, and she hopped on one foot, sobbing softly and trembling, as she pulled them on.

Then she rushed to Craig and threw both her arms about him. She could not speak but she choked and gulped down her tears. Her body shook wildly and Craig held her close and made incoherent soothing noises to her.

"The sooner you sign, the sooner you can go." Craig went to the table, still holding Sally-Anne in the curve of his left arm.

Captain Nbebi handed him a pen and he initialled the two top sheets of the confession, and signed the last one in full. Both Captain Nbebi and Peter Fungabera witnessed his signature, and then Peter said, "One last formality. I want both you and Miss Jay to be examined by the regimental doctor for any signs of ill-treatment or undue coercion."

"God damn you, hasn't she had enough?"

"Humour me, please, my dear fellow." The doctor must have been waiting in one of the trucks outside. He was a small dapper Shana and his manner was brisk and businesslike.

"You may examine the woman in the bedroom, Doctor.

In particular, please satisfy yourself that she has not been forcibly penetrated," Peter Fungabera instructed him, and then as they left the dining-room, he turned to Craig. "In the meantime, you may open the safe in your office and take out your passport and whatever other documents you need for the journey." may Two troopers escorted Craig to his office at the far end of the veranda, and waited while he struck the combination of the safe. He took out his passport, the wallet containing his credit cards and World Bank badge, three folders of American Express travellers" cheques, and the bundle of manuscript for the new novel. He stuffed them into a British Airways flight bag and went back to the dining-room.

Sally-Anne and the doctor came back from the bed, room. She had changed into a blue cashmere jersey, shirt and jeans, and she had controlled her hysteria to an occasional gulping sob, though she was still shivering in little convulsive fits. She dragged her camera bag and under one arm carried the art folder of photographs and text for their book.

"Your turn," Peter Fungabera invited Craig to follow the doctor, and when he returned Sally-Anne was seated in the back seat of a Land-Rover parked in front of the veranda. Captain Nbebi was beside her, and there were two armed troopers in the back of the vehicle. The seat beside the driver was empty for Craig.

Peter Fungabera was waiting on the veranda. "Goodbye, Craig," he said, and Craig stared at him, trying to project the full venom he felt for him.

"You didn't really believe that I would allow you to rebuild your family's empire, did you?" Peter asked without rancour. "We fought too hard to destroy that world." As the Land-Rover drove down the hills in the night, Craig turned and looked back. Peter Fungabera still stood on the lighted veranda, and somehow his tall figure was transformed. He looked as though he belonged there, likea conqueror who has taken possession, like the patron of the grand estate. Craigtwatched him until the trees hid him, and only then 4id the leaven of his true hatred begin to rise within him Al he headlights of the Land-Rover swung across the signboard: King's Lynn Afrikander Stud Proprietor: Craig Mellow It seemed to mock him, then they were past it and rattling across the steel cattle-grid. They left the soil of King's Lynn and Craig's dreams behind them, and swung westwards. The lugged tyres began their monotonous hum as they hit the black top of the main road, and still nobody in the Land-Rover spoke.

Captain Nbebi opened the map-case that he was holding on his knees and took out a bottle of fiery locally made cane spirits. He passed the bottle over the front seat to Craig. Craig waved it brusquely aside, but Timon Nbebi insisted, and Craig took it with ill grace. He unscrewed the cap and swallowed a maud-dul, then exhaled the fumes noisily. It brought tears to his eyes, but immediately the fireball in his belly spread out through his blood, giving him comfort. He took another swig and passed the bottle back to Sally-Anne. She shook her head.

"Drink it," Craig ordered, and meekly she obeyed. She had stopped weeping, but the fits of shivering still persisted.

The spirits made her cough and choke, but she got them down, and they steadied her.

"Thank you." She handed the bottle back to Timon Nbebi, and the politeness from a woman who had been so recently degraded and humiliated was embarrassing to all of them.

They reached the first roadblock on the outskirts of the town of Bulawayo, and Craig checked his wrist-watch. It was seven minutes to three in the morning. There were no other vehicles waiting at the barrier, and two troopers stepped out from behind the barricade and came to each side of the Land-Rover. Timon Nbebi slid back his window and spoke quietly to one of them, offering his pass at the same time. The trooper examined it briefly in the beam of his flashlight, then handed it back. He saluted, and the barrier lifted. They drove through.

Bulawayo was silent and devoid of life, only very few of the windows were lit. A traffic-light flashed green and amber and red, and the driver stopped obediently, although the streets were completely deserted. The engine throbbed in idle and then above it, far off and faint, came the popping sound of automatic rifle, fire

Craig was watching Timon Nbebi's face in the rearview mirror, and saw him wince slightly at the sound of gunfire. Then the light changed and they drove on, taking the south road through the suburbs. On the edge of the town there were two more road-blocks and then the open road.

They ran southwards in the night, with the whine of the tyres and the buffet of the wind against the cab. The glow from the dashboard gave their faces a sickly greenish hue and once or twice the radio in the back crackled and gabbled distorted Shana. Craig recognized Peter Fungabera's voice on one of the transmissions, but he must have been calling another unit, for Timon Nbebi made no effort to reply and they drove on in silence. The monotonous hum of engine and tyres and the warmth of the cab lulled Craig, and in a reaction. from anger and fear he found himself dozing.

He awoke with a start as Timon Nbebi spoke for the first time, and the beat of the Land-Rover's engine altered.

It was dawn's first light. He could see the silhouette of the tree-tops against the paling lemon sky. The Land-Rover slowed and then swung off the main tarmac road onto a dirt track. Immediately the mushroom smell of talcum dust permeated the cab.

"VAlere are we?" Craig demanded. "Why are we leaving the road?" Timon Nbebi spoke to the driver and he pulled to the side of the track and stopped.

"You will please step out," Timon ordered, and as Craig did so, Timon was waiting for him, seeming to help him down but instead he took Craig's arm, turned it slightly, and before Craig could react to the icy touch of steel on his skin, Timon had handcuffed both his wrists. It had been so unexpected and so expertly done that for seconds Craig stood bewildered with his manacled hands thrust out in front of him, staring at them. Then he shouted, "Christ, what is this?" By then Timon Nbebi had handcuffed Sally-Anne as quickly and efficiently, and ignoring Craig's outburst, was talking quietly to his driver and the two troopers. It was o quick for Craig to follow, although he caught the to Shana words "kill" and "hide'. One of the troopers seemed to protest and Timon leaned through the open door of the Land-Rover and lifted the microphone of the radio. He gave a call sign, repeated three times, and after a short wait was patched through to Peter Fungabera. Craig recognized the general's voice despite the VHF distortion.

There was a brief exchange, and when Timon Nbebi hung the microphone, the trooper was no longer protesting.

Clearly Timon Nbebi's orders had been endorsed.

"We will go on,"Timon reverted to English, and Craig was roughly hustled back into the front seat. The change in their treatment was ominous.

The driver threaded the Land-Rover deeper and deeper into the Thorn veld, and the morning light strengthened.

Outside the cab, the dawn bird chorus was in full voice.

Craig recognized the high clear duet of a pair of collate barbers in an acacia tree beside the track. A brown hare was trapped in the beam of the headlights and lolloped ahead of them with his long pink ears flapping. Then the sky began to bum with the stupendous colours of the African dawn and the driver switched off the headlights.

L J

"Craig, darling. They are going to kill us, aren't they?" Sally-Anne asked quietly. Her voice was clear and firm now. She had conquered her hysteria and was in control of herself again. She spoke as though they were alone.

"I'm sorry." Craig could find nothing else to say. "I should have known that Peter Fungabera would never let us go."

"There is nothing you could have done. Even if you had known."

"They'll bury us in some remote place and our disappearance will be blamed on the Matabele dissidents," Craig said, and Timon Nbebi sat silent and impassive, neither admitting nor denying the accusation.

The road forked, the left-hand track barely discernible, and Timon Nbebi indicated it. The driver slowed further and changed to a lower gear. They bumped along it for another twenty minutes. By then it was fully light, the promise of sunrise flaming the tip tops of the acacia.

Timon Nbebi gave another order and the driver turned off the track and drove blindly through the waist-high grass, skirting the edge of a grey granite kopje, until they were entirely screened from even the rudimentary bush track that they had been following. Another short order, and the driver stopped and switched off the engine.

The silence closed in on them, enhancing their sense of isolation and remoteness.

"No one will ever finds here," Sally-Anne said quietly, and Craig could find rw word of comfort for her.

"You will remain4 here you are,"Timon Nbebi ordered.

"Don't you feel anything for what you are going to do?" Sally-Anne asked him, and he turned his head to her.

Behind the steel rimmed spectacles his eyes were perhaps shaded with misery and regret, but his mouth was set hard.

He did not reply to her question, and after a moment turned from her and alighted. He gave orders in Shana, and the troopers racked their weapons in the back of the r

Land-Rover while the driver climbed up onto the roof tack and brought down three folding trenching-tools.

Timon Nbebi reached through the window and took the keys out of the Land-Rover's engine, then he led his men a short distance away and with the toe of his boot marked out two oblongs on the sandy grey earth. The three Shonas shucked off their webbing and battle-jackets, and began to dig out the graves. They went down swiftly in the loose soil. Timon Nbebi stood aside watching them. He lit a cigarette and the grey smoke spiralled straight up in the still, cool dawn.

"I am going to try to get one of the rifles," Craig whispered. The weapons were in the back of the vehicle.

He would have to crawl over the backs of both seats, then reach the rifles which were standing upright in the racks.

He would have to open the clip on the rack, load the weapon, change the rate-of-fire selector and aim through the back window all with his hands manacled.

"You won't make it," Sally' Anne whispered.

"Probably not," he agreed grimly, "but can you think of anything else? When I say "Go", I want you to throw yourself flat on the floor." Craig wriggled around in the seat, his leg hampering him catching by the ankle on the lever of the four-wheel drive selector. He kicked it free and gathered himself. He took a slow breath, and glanced out of the rear window at the little group of grave-diggers.

"Listen," he told her urgently. "I love you. I have never loved anyone the way I love you." love you, too, my darling," she whispered back.

"Be brave!" he said.

"Good luck!" She was crouching down, and he almost in made his move, but at that moment Timon Nbebi turned towards the Land-Rover. He saw Craig twisted around in the seat, and Sally-Anne down below the sill. He frowned and came back to the vehicle with quick businesslike strides. At the open window he paused and spoke softly in English.

"Don't do it, Mr. Mellow. We are all of us in great danger. Our only chance is for you to remain still and not to interfere or make any unexpected move." He took the ignition keys from his pocket, and with his other hand loosened the flap of the webbing pistol-holster on his belt.

He kept on talking softly, J have effectively disarmed my men, and their attention is on their work. When I enter the Land-Rover, do not hamper me or try to attack me. I am in as great a dancer as you are. You must trust me. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Craig nodded. Christ! Do I have any choice, he thought.

Timon opened the driver's door of the Land' Rover and slid in under the wheel. He glanced once at the three soldiers who were by now waist-deep in the two graves, then Timon slipped the key into the ignition and turned it.

The engine turned over loudly, and the three soldiers looked up, puzzled. The starter-motor whirred and churned, and the engine would not fire. One of the troopers shouted, and jumped out of the grave. His chest was snaked with sweat and powdered with grey dust. He started towards the stranded Land' Rover Timon Nbebi pumped the accelerator, and kept turning the engine. He had a desperate, terrified look on his face, "You'll flood her, "Craig told him. "Take your foot off!" The trooper broke into a run towards them. He was shouting angry questions, and the starter went on Whirr!

Whirr! Whirr! with Timon frozen to the wheel.

The running trooper was almost alongside, and now the others, slower and less alert, began to follow him. They were shouting also, one of them swinging his trenching tool menacingly.

"Lock the door!" Craig shouted urgently, and Timon pushed down the handle into the lock position just as the trooper threw his weight on it. He heaved at the outside handle with all his weight, and then darted to the rear door and before Sally-Anne could lock it, jerked it open. He reached in and caught Sally-Anne by the upper arm and began dragging her from the open door.

Craig was still hunched around in the front seat and now he lifted both manacled hands high and brought them down on the trooper's shaven head. The sharp steel edge of the cuffs cut down to the bone of the skull, and the man collapsed half in and half out of the open door.

Craig hit him again, in the centre of the forehead, and had a brief glimpse of white bone in the bottom of the wound before quick bright blood obscured it. The other two soldiers were only paces away, baying like wolfhounds and armed with their spades.

At that moment the engine of the Land-Rover fired and roared into life. Timon Nbebi hit the gear-lever, and with a clash of metal it engaged and the Land-Rover shot forward. Craig was thrown over the seat half on top of Sally-Anne, and the bleeding trooper was caught by his dangling legs in a thorn bush and ripped out through the rear door.

The Land-Rover swerved and bucked over the rough ground, with the two screeching black soldiers running behind it, and the open door flapping and banging wildly.

Then Timon Nbebi straightened the wheel and changed gear. "Me Land-Rover accelerated away, crashing over rock and fallen branches, and the pursuing troopers fell back.

One of them hurled his spade despairingly after them. It shattered the rear window, and broken glass spilled over the rear of the cab.

Timon Nbebi picked up their own incoming tracks through the high grass, and at last they were going faster than a man could run. The two troopers gave up and stood A

panting in the tracks, their shouts of recrimination and anger dwindled and then were lost. Timon reached the bush track at the point that they had left it, and turned onto it, picking up speed.

"Give me your hands," he ordered, and when Craig offered his manacled hands, Timon unlocked the cuffs.

"Here! he gave Craig the key. "Do the same for Miss Jay." j She rubbed her wrists. "My God, Craig, I truly thought that was the end of the line."

"A close, run thing," Timon Nbebi agreed, with all his attention on the track. "Napoleon said that, I think." And then, before Craig could correct him, "Please to arm yourself with one of the rifles, Mr. Mellow, and place the other beside me." Sally-Anne passed the short, ugly weapons over to the front seat. The Third Brigade was the only unit of the regular army still armed with AK 47s, a legacy from their North Korean instructors.

"Do you know how to use it, Mr. Mellow?" Timon Nbebi asked.

was an armourer in the Rhodesian Police." iX course, how stupid of me." Swiftly Craig checked the curved "banana" magazine and then reloaded the chamber. The weapon was new and well cared for. The weight of it in Craig's hands changed his whole personality. "Iinutes before, he had been mere flotsam on the stream, "06wept along by events over which he had no control, confused and uncertain and afraid but now he was armed. Now he could fight back, now he could protect his woman and himself, now he could shape events rather than be shaped by them. It was the primeval, atavistic instinct of primitive man, and Craig revelled in it. He reached over the seat and took Sally-Anne's hand.

He squeezed it briefly, and fervently she returned the pressure.

"Now we have a fighting chance, at least." The new tone of his voice reached her. Her spirits lifted a little, and she gave him the first smile he had seen that night. He freed his hand, found the bottle of cane spirit in the cubbyhole, and passed it to her. After she had drunk, he gave it to Timon Nbebi.

"All right, Captain, what the hell is going on here?" Timon gasped at the sting of the liquor and his voice was roughened by it as he replied.

"You were perfectly correct, Mr. Mellow, my orders from General Fungabera were to take you and Miss Jay into the bush and execute you. And you were also correct in guessing that your disappearance would be blamed on the Matabele dissidents."

"Well, why didn't you obey your orders?" Before replying, Timon handed the bottle back to Craig, and then glanced over his shoulder at Sally-Anne.

"I am sorry that I had to go through the preparations for your execution, without being able to reassure you, but my men speak English. I had to make it look real. It galled me, for I didn't want to inflict more on you, after what you have already suffered."

"Captain Nbebi, I forgive you everything and I love you for what you are doing, but why, in God's name, are you doing it?" Sally-Anne demanded.

"What I am about to tell you, I have never told a living soul before. You see, my mother was a full-blooded Matabele. She died when I was very young, but I remember her well and honour that memory." He did not look at them, but concentrated on the track ahead. "I was raised as a Shana by my father, but I have always been aware of my Matabele blood. They are my people, and I can no longer stomach what is being done to them. I am certain that General Fungabera has become aware of my feelings, though I doubt that he knows about MY mother, but he knows that I have reached the end of my usefulness to him. Recently there have been small signs of it. I have lived too close to the man-eating leopard for too long not to know its moods. After I had buried you, there would have been something for me also, an unmarked grave or Fungabera's puppies." Timon used the Sindebele, amawundhla ka Fungabera, and Craig was startled. Sarah Nyoni, the schoolteacher at Tuti Mission, had used the same phrase.

"I have heard that expression before I do not under, stand it "Hyena," Timon explained. "Those who die or are executed at the rehabilitation centres are taken into the bush and laid out for the hyena. The hyena leaves nothing, not a chip of bone nor a tuft of hair."

"Oh God," said Sally-Anne in a small voice. "We were at Tuti. We heard the brutes, but didn't understand. How many have gone that way?" Timon Nbebi said, "I can only guess many thousands."

"It's scarcely believable."

"General Fungabera's hatred for the Matabele is a kind of madness, an obsession. He is planning to wipe them out.

First it was their leaders, accused of treason falsely accused, like Tungata Zebiwe "

"Oh naP Sally' Anne said miserably. "I cant 3ear it was Zebiwe innocent?"

"I'm sorry, Miss jayTimon Nbebi confirmed it. "Fun, gab era had to be yew careful when he tackled Zebiwe. He knew if he seized hi In" for his political activities, he would have the entire Matabele tribe in revolt. You and Mr. Mellow provided him with the perfect opportunity a non-political crime. A crime of greed."

"I'm being stupid," said Sally-Anne. "If Zebiwe wasn't the master poacher, was there ever a poacher? And if there was who was it?"

"General Fungabera himself, "said Timon Nbebi simply.

Ak

"Are you sure?" Craig was incredulous.

"I was personally in charge of many of the shipments of 0, animal contraband that left the country."

"But that night on the Karoi road?" "That was easily arranged. The general knew that sooner or later Zebiwe would be going to Tuti Mission again.

Zebiwe's secretary informed us of the exact time and date.

We arranged for the truck loaded with contraband, driven by a Matabele detainee we had bribed, to be waiting for him on the Tuti road. Of course, we had not anticipated Tungata Zebiwe's violent reaction that was merely a bonus for us." Timon drove as fast as the track would allow, while Sally' Anne and Craig hunched down in their seats, their artificial elation at their escape rapidly giving way to fatigue and shock.

"Where are we heading?" Craig asked.

"Botswana border." That was the landlocked state to the south and west which had become an established staging post for political fugitives from its neighbours.

"On our way I hope you will have a chance to see what is really happening to my people. No one else will bear witness. General Fungabera has sealed off the whole of south-western Matabeleland. No journalists are allowed in, no clergymen, no Red Cross-" He slowed for an area where ant bears had dug their holes in the track, burrowing for the nests Of termites, and then he accelerated again.

"The pass I have from General Fungabera will take us a little further, but not as far as the border. We will have to use side roads and back roads until we can find a crossing place. Very soon General Fungabera will learn of my defection, and we will be hunted by the whole of the Third Brigade. We must make as much distance as we can before that happens." They reached the main fork in the track and Timon stopped, but kept the motor running. He took a large, scale map from his leather map-case and studied it attentively.

"We are just south of the railway line. This is the road to Empandeni Mission Station. If we can get through there before the alarm goes out for us, then we can try for the border between Madaba and Matsurni. The Botswana police run a regular patrol along the fence."

"Let's get on with it." Craig was impatient and becoming fear fill the comfort of the weapon across his lap beginning to fade. Timon folded the map and drove on.

"Can I ask you some more questions?" Sally-Anne spoke after a few minutes.

"I will try to answer,"Timon agreed.

"The murder of the Goodwins, and the other white families in Matabeleland were those atrocities ordered by Tungata Zebiwe? Is he responsible for those gruesome murders?"

"No, no, Miss Jay. Zebiwe has been trying desperately to control those killers. I believe that he was on his way to Tuti Mission for just such a reason to meet with the radical Matabele elements and try to reason with them."

"But the writing in blood, "Tungata Zebiwe Lives"?" Now Timon Nbebi was silent, his face contorted as though he fought some inner battle, and they waited for him to speak. At last he. sighed explosively, and his voice had changed.

"Miss Jay, please troy to understand my position, before you judge me for -what I am about to tell you. General Fungabera is a persuasive man. I was carried along by his promises of glory and reward. Then suddenly I had gone too far and I was not able to turn back. I think the English expression is "riding the tiger". I was forced to move on from one bad deed to another even worse." He paused, and then, in a rush, "Miss Jay, I personally recruited the killers of the Goodwin family from the rehabilitation centre. I told them where to go, what to do and what to write on the wall. I supplied their weapons, and arranged for them to be driven to the area in transport of the Third Brigade." There was silence again, broken only by the throb of the Land-Rover engine, and Timon Nbebi had to break it, speaking as though words were an opiate for his guilt.

"They were Matabele, veterans, war-hard men, men who would do anything for the return of their personal liberty, the chance to carry weapons again. They did not hesitate."

"And Fungabera ordered it? "Craig asked.

"Of course. It was his excuse to begin the purge of the Matabele.

Now perhaps you understand why I am fleeing with you. I could not continue along this path."

"The other murders the killing of Senator Savage and his family?" Sally-Anne asked.

"General Fungabera. did not have to order those," Timon shook his head. "Those were copycat murders. The bush is still full of wild men from the war. They hide their weapons and come into the towns, some even have regular jobs, but at the weekend or on a public holiday, they return to the bush, dig up their rifles and go on the rampage. They are not political dissidents, they are armed bandits and the white families are the juiciest, softest targets, rich and helpless, deprived of their weapons by Mugabe's government so they cannot defend themselves."

"And it all plays right into Peter Fungabera's hands.

Any bandit is labelled a political dissident, any grisly robbery an excuse to continue the purge, held up to the world as proof of the savagery and intractability of the Matabele tribe," Craig continued for him.

"That is correct, Mr. Mellow."

"And he has already murdered Tungata Zebiwe-" Craig felt old and tired with regret and guilt for his old comrade you can be sure of thad"

"No, Mr. Mellow." Timon shook his head.

"I do not believe that Zebiwe is dead. I believe General Fungabera wants him alive. He has some plans for him." Wiat plans?" Craig demanded.

"I do not know for certain, but I believe Peter Fungabera is dealing with the Russians."

"The Russians? "Craig showed his disbelief.

"He has had secret meetings with a stranger, a foreigner, a man who I believe is an important member of Russian intelligence."

"Are you sure, Timon?"

"I have seen the man with my own eyes." Craig thought about that for a few seconds, and then reverted to his original question.

"Okay, leave the Russians for the moment where is Tungata Zebiwe? Where is Fungabera holding him?"

"Again, I do not know, I'm sorry, Mr. Mellow."

"If he is alive, then may the Lord have mercy on his soul," Craig whispered.

He could imagine what Tungata must be suffering. He was silent for a few minutes and then he changed the line of questioning.

"General Fungabera has seized my property for himself, not for the state? I am correct in believing that?"

"The general wanted that land very badly. He spoke of it often."

"How? I mean, even qjjsi-legally, how will he work it?"

"It is very simple,".Timon explained. "You are an admit red enemy of the state. Your property is forfeited. It will be confiscated to the state. The Land Bank will repudiate the suretyship for your loan under the release clause which you signed. The custodian of enemy property will put up your shares of Rholands Company for sale by private tender.

General Fungabera's tender will be accepted his brotherin-law is custodian of enemy property. The tender price will be greatly advantageous to the general."

"Add

41 bet," said Craig bitterly.

"But why should he go to such lengths?" Sally-Anne demanded. "He must be a millionaire many times over.

Surely he has enough already?"

"Miss Jay. For some men there is no such thing as enough."

"He cannot hope to get away with it, surely?" "Who is there to prevent him doing so, Miss Jay?" And when she did not reply, Timon went on, "Africa is going back to where it was before the white man intruded. There is only one criterion for a ruler here and that is strength.

We Africans do not trust anything else. Fungabera is strong, as Tungata Zebiwe was once strong. "Timon glanced at his wrist-watch. "But we must eat. I think we will have a long day ahead of us." He pulled off the track, and drove the Land-Rover into a patch of second-growth scrub. He climbed onto the bormetand arranged branches to cover the vehicle, hiding it from detection from the air, and then opened the case of emergency rations from the locker under the passenger seat. There was water in the tank under the floorboards Craig filled a metal canteen with sand and soaked the sand with gasoline from the reserve tank. It made a smokeless burner on which to brew tea. They ate the unappetizing cold rations with little conversation.

Once Timon turned up the volume on the radio to listen to a transmission, then shook his head.

"Nothing to do with us." He came back to squat beside Craig.

"How far to the border, do you reckon?" Craig asked with a mouth full of cold, sticky bully beef.

"Forty miles, or a little more." The radio crackled to life again, and Timon jumped u PI and stooped over it attentively.

"There is a unit of the Third Brigade just a few miles ahead of us," he reported. "They are at the mission station Jim at Empandeni. There has been action against dissidents, but they had dealt with them and they are moving out.

Perhaps this way. We must be careful."

"I will check that we are hidden from the road." Craig stood up. "Sally-Anne, douse the fire! Captain, cover me!" He picked up the AK 47 and ran back to the track.

Critically he examined the patch of scrub that concealed the Land-Rover and then brushed over his own tracks and those of the vehicle with a leafy twig, and carefully straightened the grass that the Land-Rover had flattened where it left the road. It wasn't perfect, but it would bear a cursory examination from a speeding vehicle, he thought, and then there was a faint vibration on the windless air.

He listened. The sound of truck motors, strengthening.

Craig ran back to the Land-Rover and climbed into the front seat beside Timon.

"Put your rifle back in the rack," Timon said, and when Craig hesitated, "Please do as I say, Mr. Mellow. If they find us, it will be useless to fight. I will have to try and talk our way through. I couldn't explain if you were armed." Reluctantly Craig passed the weapon back to Sally Anne She racked it and Craig was left feeling naked and vulnerable. He clenched his fists in his lap. The sound of motors grew swiftly, and then over them the voices of men singing. The song grew louder, and despite his tension Craig felt the hair prickle on the nape of his neck to the peculiar beauty of African-4voices raised in song.

"Third Brigade," Timon said. "That is the "Song of the Rain Winds", the praise song of the regiment." Neither of them replied, and Timon hummed the tune to himself, and then began to sing softly. He had a startlingly true and thrilling voice.

"When the nation bunts, the rain winds bring relief, When the cattle are drought-stricken, the rain winds lift them up, When your children cry with thirst, the rain winds slake them, We are the winds that bring the rain, We are the good winds of the nation." Timon translated from the Shana for their benefit, and now Craig could see the grey dust of the trucks smoking up above the scrub, and the singing was close and clear.

There was a flash of reflected sunlight off metal, and then through the foliage Craig caught quick glimpses of the passing convoy. There were three trucks, painted a dull sand colour, and the backs were crowded with soldiers in battle camouflage and bush hats, their weapons held ready at the high port position. On the cab of the last truck rode an officer, the only one of them wearing the red beret and silver cap badge He looked directly at Craig, and seemed very close, the screen of foliage suddenly very sparse. Craig shrank back in his seat.

Then, thankfully, the convoy was past, the rumble of engines and the singing dwindling, the pale dust settling.

Timon Nbebi exhaled a long breath. "There will be others," he cautioned, and, with his fingers on the ignition key, waited until the silence was complete once again.

Then he started the Land-Rover, reversed out of the scrub and turned back onto the track.

He swung the Land-Rover in the opposite direction from the convoy, and they drove over the rugged tracks that the trucks had imprinted deeply into the sandy earth.

They drove for another twenty minutes before Timon ducked down abruptly in his seat, to peer up at the sky through the windshield.

"Smoke," he said. "Empandeni is just ahead. Will you have your camera ready, Miss Jay? I believe the Third Brigade will have left something for you." They came to the maize fields that surrounded the mission village. The maize stalks had dried, the cobs in their yellow sheaths were beginning to droop heavily, ready for the harvest. There had been women working in the fields. One of them lay beside the track. She had been shot in the back as she ran, the bullet had exited between her breasts. The unweaned child that she carried on her back had been bayoneted, many times. The flies rose up in a blue hum as they passed and then settled again.

Nobody spoke. Sally-Anne reached into her camera-bag and brought out her Nikon. She was bloodless grey under her freckles.

The other women lay further from the road, mere bundles of gay cloth, heavily stained. There were possibly fifty huts in the village, all of them were burning, the thatched roofs torching up to the clear blue morning sky.

They had thrown most of the corpses into the burning huts, leaving black puddles drying where they had fallen and drag marks in the dust. The smell of seared flesh was very strong, it coated the roofs of their mouths like congealed pork fat. Craig's stomach heaved, and he covered his mouth and nose with his hand.

"These are dissidents?". Sally-Anne whispered. Her lips were icy white. The motor drive of her Nikon whirred as she shot through the open window.

They had killed the chickens, the loose feathers rolled on the light breeze, like the stuffing from a burst pillow.

"Stop!" Sally-Anne ordered.

"It is dangerous to stay, "id Timon.

"Stop," Sally' Anne repeated.

She left the door open, and went among the huts.

Working swiftly, changing roll after roll of film with practised nimble fingers, while her white lips trembled and her eyes behind the lens were huge with horror.

"We must move on," said Timon.

"Wait." Sally-Anne moved quickly forward, doing her job like the professional she was. She moved behind a group of huts. The smell of burning flesh nauseated Craig, and the heat from the fires came at him in great furnace gusts as the breeze veered.

Sally Anne screamed and the two men jumped from the Land-Rover and ran, cocking their rifles, diverging to give each other covering fire, Craig finding his old training returning instinctively. He came around the side of a hut.

Sally-Anne stood in the open, no longer able to use her camera. A naked black woman lay at her feet. The woman is upper ocy was that of a comely, healthy young woman, below her navel she was a pink skinless monstrosity. She had dragged herself back out of the fire into which they had thrown her. There were places on her lower body where the burning was not deep, here the flesh was piebald pink and weeping lymph. Then in other places the bone was exposed; her hipbones charred black as charcoal, protruded obscenely from the scorched meat of her pelvic area. The lining of her stomach had burned through and her entrails bulged from the opening. Miraculously, she was still alive. Her fingers raked the dust with a repetitive, mechanical movement. Her mouth opened and closed convulsively, making no sound, and her eyes were wide open, aware and suffering.

"Go back to the Land' Rover please, Miss Jay," Timon Nbebi said. "There is nothing you can do to help her." Sally-Anne stood stiffly, unable to move. Craig put his arms around her shoulders and turned her away. He led her back towards the Land-Rover.

At the corner of the burning hut Craig glanced back.

Timon Nbebi had moved up close to the maimed woman, he stood over her with the AK 47 held ready on his hip, his whole attention was focused upon her and his face was almost as riven with suffering as was the woman's.

Craig took Sally-Anne around the hut. Behind them there was the whip-crack of a single shot, muted by the crackle of flames all around them. Sally' Anne stumbled and then caught her balance. When they reached the Land' Rover Sally-Anne leaned against the cab and doubled over slowly. She vomited in the dust and then straightened up and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Craig took the bottle of cane spirit from the cubby hole.

There was an inch of the clear liquor remaining. He gave it to Sally-Anne and she drank it like water. Craig took the empty bottle back from her, and then abruptly and savagely hurled it into the burning hut.

Timon Nbebi came around the hut. Wordlessly he climbed behind the steering, wheel and Craig helped Sally Anne into the rear seat. They drove slowly through the rest of the village, their heads turning from side to side as each fresh horror was revealed.

As they passed the little church of red brick, the roof collapsed in upon itself, and the wooden cross on the spire was swallowed in a belch of sparks and flames and blue smoke. In the bright sunlight the flames were almost colourless.

imon Nbebi used the radio the way a navigator uses an echo sounder to find the channel through shoal water.

The Third Brigade roadblocks and ambushes were reporting over the VHF vast to their area headquarters, giving their positions a* part of their routine reports, and Timon pin-pointed them on his map.

Twice they avoided road-blocks by taking side-tracks and cattle paths, groping forward carefully through the acacia forest. Twice more they came to small villages, mere cattle stations, homes of two or three Matabele families.

The Third Brigade had preceded them, and the crows and vultures had followed, picking at the partially roasted carcasses in the warm ashes of the burned-out huts.

They kept moving westwards, when the tracks allowed.

At each prominence that afforded a view ahead, Timon parked in cover and Craig climbed to the crest to scout ahead. In every direction he looked, the towering blue of the sky above the wide horizon was marred by standing columns of smoke from burning villages. Westwards still they crawled, and the terrain changed swiftly as they approached the edge of the Kalahari Desert. There were fewer and still fewer features. The land levelled into a grey, monotonous plain, burning endlessly under the high merciless sun. The trees became stunted, their branches heat-tortured as the limbs of cripples. This was a land able to support only the most rudimentary human needs, the beginning of the great wilderness. Still they edged westwards into it.

The sun made its noon and slid down the sky, and they had made good a mere thirty miles since dawn. Still at least another twenty miles to reach the border, Craig estimated from the map, and all three of them were exhausted from the unremitting strain and the heat in the unlined metal cab.

In the middle of the afternoon, they stopped again for a few minutes. Craig brewed tea, Sally-Anne went behind a low clump of thorn scrub nearby and squatted out of view, while Timon hunched over the radio.

"There are no more villages ahead, Timon said as he returned the set. "I think we are Clear, but I have never been further than this. I am not sure what to expect." J worked here with Tungata when we were in the Game Department. That was back in "72. We followed a pride of cattle-killing lions nearly a hundred miles across the border. It's bad country no surface water, soft going with salt-pans and-" he broke off as Tinion signalled him urgently to silence.

Tirrion had picked up another voice on the radio. It was more authoritative, more cutting than the reports of the A, platoon he had been monitoring. Clearly it was demanding priority and clearing the net for an urgent flash. Timon Nbebi stiffened, and exclaimed under his breath.

"What is it?" Craig could not contain his forebodings, but Timon held up a hand for silence and listened to the long staccato transmission that followed in Shana. When the carrier beam of the radio went mute, he looked up at them.

"A patrol has picked up the three men we marooned this morning. That was an alert to all units. General Fungabera has given top priority to our recapture. Two spotter aircraft have been diverted to this area. They should be overhead very soon. The general has calculated our position with great accuracy, he has ordered the punitive units to the east of us to abandon their missions and to move in this direction immediately. He has guessed that we are trying to reach the border south of Plumtree and the railway-line. He is rushing two platoons down from the main border-post at Plumtree to block us." He paused, took off his spectacles and polished the lenses on the tail of his silk cravat. Without his spectacles, he was as myopic as an owl in daylight.

"General Fungabera has given the "leopard" code to all units-" He paused again, and then almost apologetically explained, "The "leopard" code is the "kill on sight" order, which is rather bad news, I'm afraid." Craig snatched the rrw and unrolled it on the bonnet.

Sally-Anne came ha4 and stood close behind them.

"We are here," he said, and Timon nodded agreement.

"This is the only track from here on, and it angles northwards about west-northwest," Craig muttered to himself. "The patrol from Plumtree must come down it to meet us, and the punitive groups must come up it behind us." Again Timon nodded. "This time they won't drive past us. They'll be on the lookout." The radio came alive again and Timon darted back to it. His expression became even more lugubrious as he listened.

"The punitive unit behind us has picked up the tracks of the Land-Rover. They are not far behind and they are coming up fast," he reported. "They have contacted the patrol on the road ahead of us. We are boxed in. I don't know what to do, Mr. Mellow. They'll be here in a few minutes." And he looked appealingly at Craig.

"All right." Craig took control quite naturally. "We'll go for the border cross-country."

"But you said that is bad country-"Timon began.

"Put her into four-wheel drive and get going," Craig snapped. "I'll ride on the roof rack to guide you. Sally, Anne, take the front seat." Perched on the roof tack the AK 47 slung over one shoulder, Craig took a sight with the hand-bearing compass from Timon's map-case, made a rough calculation of the magnetic deflection, and called down to Timon.

"Right, turn right that's it. Hold that course." He was lined up on the white glare of a small salt-pan a few miles ahead, and the surface under them seemed firm and reasonably fast. The Land-Rover accelerated away, barging through the low thorn scrub, weaving only when they came to coarser thorn or one of the stunted trees. Craig called corrections after every deviation.

They were making twenty-five miles an hour and it was clear as far as the horizon. The pursuing trucks, heavy and cumbersome, couldn't outrun them, Craig was sure, and the border was less than an hour ahead, darkness not far off. That cup of tea had cheered him, and Craig felt his spirits lift.

"All right, you bastards, come and get us!"he challenged the unseen enemy and laughed into the wind. He had forgotten the way adrenalin buzzed in the blood when danger was close. Once he had thrived on the feel of it, and the addiction was still there, he realized.

PP

L He swivelled and looked back, and saw it immediately likea little willy, willy the dust devils that dance on the desert in the hot stillness of midday, but this dust cloud was moving with purpose, and it was exactly where he had expected to find it, due east of them and coming fast down the road they had just left.

"I have one patrol in sight," he leaned out and shouted down to the open driver's window. "They are about five miles behind." Then he looked back again, and grimaced at their own dust cloud thrown up by the four-wheel drive. It followed them likea bridal train and hung for minutes after they had passed, a long pale smear above the scrub. They could hardly miss it. He was watching the dust when he should have been looking ahead. The ant-bear hole was screened from the driver's view by the pale desert grass. They hit it at twenty-five miles an hour, and it stopped them dead.

Craig was hurled forward off the roof, flying out over the bonnet to hit the earth with his elbows and his knees and the side of his face. He lay in the dust, stunned and hurting. Then he rolled into a sitting position and spat muddy blood from his mouth. He checked his teeth with his tongue, and they were all firm. There was no skin on his elbows, and blood seeped through the knees of his jeans. He fumbled at the strap of his leg and it was intact.

He dragged himself to his feet.

The Land-Rover was4ilown heavily on her left front, chassis deep in the h*le. He limped to the passenger side, cursing his own inattention, and jerked the door open.

The windscreen was cracked and starred where Sally, Anne's head had hit, and she was slumped forward in the seat.

"Oh God! he whispered, and lifted her head gently.

There was a lump the size of a blue acorn over her eye, but when he touched her cheek, her vision focused and she looked at him.

"Are you hurt badly?" She struggled upright. "You are bleeding," she mumbled, likea drunk.

"It's a graze," he reassured her, and squeezed her arm, looking across her at Timon.

His mouth had struck the steering-wheel, his upper lip was cut through and one of his incisors had broken off at the gum. His mouth was full of blood, and he staunched it with the silk scarf.

"Get her in reverse," Craig ordered him, and pulled Sally-Anne from the cab to lighten the vehicle. She staggered a few paces and flopped down on her backside, still groggy and confused from the head blow.

The engine had stalled, and it baulked at the starter while Craig fretted and watched the dust cloud behind them. It was no longer distant, and it was coming on fast.

t ast the engine caught, stuttered and then roared as Timon trod too heavily on the pedal. He let out the clutch with a bang, and all four wheels spun wildly.

"Easy, man, you'll break a half shaft Craig snarled at him.

Timon tried again, more gently, but again the wheels spun, blowing out dust behind them, and the vehicle roe I ked crazily but remained bogged down.

Stop it! Craig pounded Timon's shoulder to make him obey. The spinning wheels in the soft earth were digging the Land-Rover into its own grave. Craig dropped on his belly and peered under the chassis. The left front wheel had dropped into the hole, and was turning in air; the weight of the vehicle rested on the blades of the front suspension.

"Trenching-tool, "Craig called to Timon.

"We left them," Timon reminded him, and Craig went at the earth on the rim of the hole with his bare hands.

"Find something to dig with!" He kept on digging frantically.

lit J, LI Timon hunted in the back locker and brought him the jack handle and a broad-bladed pan ga Craig attacked the edge of the hole with them, grunting and panting, his own sweat stinging the open graze on his cheek.

The radio jabbered. "They have found the spot where we left the road,"Timon translated.

"Christ!" Craig sobbed with effort, that was less than two miles back.

"Can I help you?" Timon was lisping through the gap in his teeth.

Craig did not bother to reply. There was only room for one man at a time to work under the chassis. The earth crumbled and the Land-Rover subsided a few inches, and then the free tyre found purchase in the bottom of the hole. Craig turned his attention to the sharp edge of the hole, cutting it away in a ramp so that it would not block the wheel.

Sally Anne you get behind the steering wheel He spoke jerkily between each blow with the pan ga "Timon and I will try to lift the front." He crawled out from under the body, and wasted a -second to look back. The dust of the pursuit was clearly visible from ground level. "Come on, Timon." They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the radiator, and bent their knees to get a good grip on the front fender.

Sally-Anne sat behind the dugt-smeared windscreen. The lump on her forehead l*oked likea huge, blue, bloodsucking tick clinging to her pale skin. She stared at Craig through the glass, her eyes and her expression desperate.

"Hit id" Craig grunted and they straightened together, lifting with their knees and all the strength of their bodies.

Craig felt the front end come up a few inches on the suspension and he nodded at Sally-Anne. She let out the clutch and the engine blustered, the wheel spun, and she jerked back and then stuck fast, blocking on the edge of the hole.

"RestP Craig grunted, and they slumped gasping over the bonnet.

Craig saw the dust of the pursuit was so close that he expected the trucks to appear beneath it as he watched.

"Okay, we'll bounce her," he told Timon. "Hit it! One!

Two! Three!" While Sally-Anne raced the engine, they flung their weight on the fender in a short regular rhythm. "One!

Two! Three!" Craig gasped, and the vehicle started surging ! and bouncing wildly against the rim of the hole.

"Keep her going!" Dust boiled around them, and the voice on the radio yelped exultantly likea lead hound taking the scent. They had seen the dust, "Keep it up! Craig found strength and reserves that he had never known were there. His teeth ground together, his breath whined in his throat, his face swelled dark angry red, and his vision starred and filled with shooting light. Still he heaved, and knew that the sinew and muscle in his back was tearing, his spine felt as though it was crushing and suddenly the Land' Rover wheels bounced over the rim and it shot backwards, clear and free.

Deprived of support, Craig fell on his knees, and thought he did not have the strength to rise again.

"Craig! Hurry!" Sally-Anne yelled at him. "Get in! With another vast effort, he heaved himself upright, and staggered to the moving Land-Rover. He dragged himself up onto the bonnet, and Sally-Anne accelerated away; for long seconds Craig clung to the bonnet, as strength oozed back into his limbs. He crawled up onto the roof tack and peered over the back of the cab.

There was only one truck behind them, a five, ton Toyota painted the familiar sand colour. Through the shimmer of heat mirage, it appeared monstrous, seeming to k float towards them, disembodied from the earth. Craig blinked the sweat out of his eyes. How close was it? Hard to tell over level ground and through the mirage.

His vision cleared, and he saw that the ungainly black superstructure above the Toyota's cab was a heavy machine-gun on a ring mount with the gunner's head behind it. It looked at this distance to be the modified Goryunov Stankovy, a nasty weapon.

"Sweet Jesus!" he whispered, as for the first time he became aware of the Land-Rover's altered motion. She was vibrating and shaking brutally, and there was the shrill protest of metal bearing on metal from the left front end where she had hit and the speed was down, way down.

Craig leaned out and yelled into the driver's window.

"Speed up! "She's busted up front." Sally-Anne stuck her head out of the window. "Any faster and she'll tear herself to pieces." Craig looked back. The truck was closing, not rapidly, but inexorably. He saw the gunner on the cab roof traverse his weapon slightly.

"Go for it, Sally-Armi! he shouted. "Take a chance of it holding.

They've got a heavy machine-gun and they're coming into range." The Land-Rover lumbered forward, and now there was a heavy clattering combined with the whine of metal. The vibration chattered Craig's teeth, and he looked back.

They were holding t1! truck off and then he saw the pursuing vehicle judder" to the recoil of the heavy weapon on the cab.

No sound of gunfire yet, Craig watched with an academic interest. Abruptly dust fountained close down their left flank, jumping six feet into the heated air in a diaphanous curtain, appearing ethereal and harmless, but the sound of passing shot spranged viciously likea copper telegraph wire hit with an iron bar.

"Turn left!" Craig yelled. Always turn towards the fall of shot. The gunner will be correcting the opposite way, and the dust will help obscure his aim.

The next burst fell right and very wide.

"Turn right!" Craig shouted.

"Shoot back at them!" Sally' Anne stuck her head out again. She was obviously recovering from the head knock, and getting fighting mad.

"I'm giving the orders," he told her. "You keep driving." The next burst was wide again, a hundred feet out.

"Turn left!" Their weaving was confusing the gunner's aim, and their dust obscuring the range, but it was costing them ground. The truck was gaining on them again.

The salt-pan was close ahead, hundreds of bare acres shimmering silver in the path of the sun. Craig narrowed picked up the tracks where his eyes against the glare, and rface. Their a small herd of zebra had crossed the smooth su hooves had broken through the salt crust into the yellow mush beneath. It would bog any vehicle that attempted that deceptively inviting crossing.

"Angle to miss the right edge of the pan left! More!

More! okay, hold that," he shouted.

There was a narrow horn of salt-pan extending out towards them, perhaps he could tempt the pursuit to take the cut across it. He stared back over their own dust cloud and said, "Shit!" softly.

The truck commander was too canny to try to cut across the horn. He was following them around, and a burst of I around them. Three rounds machinegun fire fell al ed craters crashed into the metal of the cab, leaving jagg rimmed with shiny metal where the camouflage paint flaked off.

"Are you okay?"

"Okayr Sally-Anne called back, but the tone of her cky. "Craig, I can't keep her voice was no longer so co going. I've got my foot flat and she is slowing down.

Something is binding up! Now Craig could smell red-hot metal from the damaged front end

"Timon, hand me up a rifle! They were still well out of range of the AK 47, but the burst he fired made him feel less helpless, even though he could not even mark the fall of his bullets. They roared around the horn of the salt-pan, in the stink of hot metal and dust, and Craig looked ahead while he reloaded the rifle.

How far to the border now? Ten miles perhaps? But would a punitive patrol of the Third Brigade, given the "leopard" code, stop at an international border? The Israelis and South Africans had long ago set a precedent for "hot pursuit" into neutral territory. He knew they would follow them to the death.

The Land-Rover lurched rhythmically now to her unbalanced suspension and for the first tim Craig knew that they weren't going to make it. The realization made him angry. He fired the- second magazine in short-spaced bursts, and at the third burst the Toyota swerved sharply and stopped in a billow of its own dust.

"I got himP he bellowed exultantly.

"Way to go!" Sally-Anne shouted back. "Geronimo!"

"Well done, Mr. Mellow,jolly well done." The truck stood mass iNly immobile while the wreaths of dust subsided arounf it.

"Eat thad" Craig howled. "Stick that up your rear end, you sons of porcupines!" And he emptied the rifle at the distant vehicle.

Men were swarming around the cab of the truck like black ants around the carcass of a beetle, and the Land Rover limped away from them gamely.

"Oh, no," Craig groaned.

The silhouette of the truck altered as it turned back towards them, once again dust rose in a feathery tail behind it.

"They are coming on!" Perhaps he had fluked a hit on the driver, but whatever damage he had inflicted, it was not permanent. It had stopped them for less than two minutes and now, if anything, the truck was coming on faster than before. As if to emphasize that fact, another burst of heavy machinegun fire hit the Land-Rover with a crash.

In the cab, somebody screamed, and the sound was ask, shrill and feminine. Craig went cold, not daring to clinging to the roof tack frozen with dread.

and Craig's "Timon's been hit." Sally-Anne's voice heart raced with relief.

"How bad?"

"Bad. He's bleeding all over."

"We can't stop. Keep going." Craig looked desperately ahead, and there was a great nothingness stretched before him. Even the stunted trees had disappeared. It was flat and featureless, the reflection from the white pans turned the sky milky pale and smudged the horizon so that there was no clear dividing line between earth and air, nothing to hold the eye.

Craig dropped his gaze, and shouted, "Stop!" To enforce the order he stamped on the roof of the cab with all his strength. Sally' Anne reacted instantly, and locked the brakes. The crippled Land-Rover skidded broadside, and came up short.

The cause of Craig's urgency was an apparently innocuous little yellow ball of fur, not as big as a football. It hopped in front of the vehicle, on long kangaroo back legs, totally out of proportion to the rest of its body, and then abruptly disappeared into the earth.

"Spring hare! Craig called. "A huge colony, right across our front."

AA

"Kangaroo rats!" Sally-Anne leaned out of the window, the engine idling, turning her face up to his for guidance.

They had been fortunate. The spring hare was almost entirely nocturnal, the single animal outside the burrows was an exceptional warning in daylight. Only now, under close scrutiny, could Craig make out the extent of the colony. There were tens of thousands of burrows, the entrances inconspicuous little mounds of loose earth, but Craig knew that the sandy soil beneath them would be honeycombed with the inter linking burrows, the entire area undermined to a depth of four feet or so.

That ground would not bear the weight of a mounted man, let alone the Land' Rover With the engine idling, Craig could clearly hear the roar of the truck behind them, and machine-gun fire whiplashed over them, so close that Craig ducked instinctively.

"Turn left! "he shouted. "Back towards the pan: They turned at right, angles across the front of the approaching truck, machinegun fire goading them on, Timon's groans reachirg Craig above the engine beat. He closed his ears to them.

"There is no way through" Sally-Anne called. The spring-hare burrows were everywhere.

"Keep going," Craig answered her. The truck had swung to cut them off, closing very swiftly now.

"There!" Craig cried with relief. As he had guessed, the spring, bare colony mopped short of the salt, pan edge, avoiding the brackish seepage from the pan. There was a narrow bridge through, and Craig guided Sally-Anne into it. Within five hundred paces they were over the bridge with the ground firm ahead. Sally-Anne pushed the Land Rover to its limit, directly away from the pursuit.

"No! No!" Craig called. "Turn right, hard right." She hesitated.

"Do it, damn you!" And suddenly she saw what he intended, and she spun the steering-wheel, running ite direction across the front Of the back in the OPPOS approaching truck.

Immediately the truck turned to head them off again, turning away from the pan, and from the bridge of firm ground through the subterranean maze of burrows. It was so close that they could see the heads of the troopers in the open back, catch the colour of a burgundy-red ge, hear the beret and the bright spark of a silver cap-bad fierce, bloodthirsty yells, see an AK 47 rifle brandished triumphantly.

feet ahead Machine,gun fire ploughed up the earth ten the standing dust.

of the Land-Rover and they tore into Craig was blazing away with the AK 47, trying to keep the driver's attention off the ground ahead of the truck.

as he changed "Please! Please, let it happen," he pleaded gods were listening.

the magazine on the hot rifle. And the full bore.

The truck went into the undermined ground at ing into a pitfall. The earth it was like an elephant running opened and swallowed her down, and as she went in she men out of toppled to one side hurling the load of armed the back. When the dust rolled aside, she was half buried, around her, lying on her side. Human bodies were strewn upright, others me of them beginning to drag themselves so lying where they had been thrown.

y'll need a bull' That it! Craig shouted down. "The dozer to get out of that."

"Craig!" she called back. "Timon is in a bad way. Can't you help him?"

"Stop for a second." the roof, and scrambled into the back Craig dropped off seat, and immediately Sally' Anne drove on.

eat, his head Timon was lying sprawled half off the s thrown back and pillowed against the door. He had lost gargled in his throat, and the his glasses. His breathing back of his battle-jacket was a soggy mess Of blood. Craig eased him cautiously back in the seat and unzipped his jacket.

He was appalled. The bullet must have come in through the metal cab, and been deformed by the impact into a primitive durn-durn. It had torn a hole the size of a demitasse coffee cup in Timon's back. There was no exit wound.

The bullet was still in there.

There was a first-aid box clamped to the dashboard.

Craig took out two field dressings, stripped the wrappers and wadded them over the wound. Hampered by the Land Rover's erratic and violent motion, he strapped them tightly.

"How is he?" Sally-Anne took her eyes off the ground ahead for a moment.

"He's going to be okay," Craig said for Timon's benefit, but to Sally-Anne he shook his head and mouthed a silent denial.

Timon was a dead man. It was merely a matter of an hour or two. Nobody could survive a wound like that. The smell of hot metal in the cab was suffocating.

can't breathe," Timon whispered, and sawed for breath.

Craig had hoped he was unconscious, but Timon's eyes were focusing on his face. Craig knocked out the Perspex pane of the window above Timon's head with his fist, to give him more air. A

"My glasses," Tim(on said. "I can't see." Craig found the steel-rimmed spectacles on the floor between the seats, and placed them on the bridge of his nose, ing ille sis over is ears.

"Thank you, Mr. Mellow." Incredibly, Timon smiled. "It doesn't look as though I'll be coming with you, after all." Craig was surprised by the strength of his own regret.

He gripped Timon's shoulder firmly, hoping that physical contact might comfort him a little.

"The truck?" Timon asked.

"We knocked it out."

"Good for you, sir." with the smell of burning As he spoke, the cab filled rubber and oil.

"We're on fire! Sally-Anne cried, and Craig whipped around in the seat.

The front end of the Land-Rover was burning, red hot metal from the damaged bearing had ignited the grease and rubber of the front tyre. Almost immediately the -tough the engine bearing seized up completely, and aid roared vainly, they ground to a halt. The slipping clutch wing out from under the burned out, more smoke spe chassis.

"Switch off Craig ordered and banged open the door, grabbing the fire, extinguisher from its rack on the doorpost.

He sprayed a white cloud of powder over the burning front end, snuffing out the flames almost instantly, and then unhitched and lifted the bonnet, scalding his fingers on hot metal. He sprayed the engine compartment to of the fire, and then stood back.

prevent a resurgence "Well," he said with finality. "This bus isn't going anywhere any more! The silence after the engine roar and the gunfire was overpowering. The pinking of cooling metal from the body ig walked of the Land' Rover sounded loud as cymbals. Cra to the rear of the cab and looked back. The bogged truck was out of sight behind them in the heat haze. The silence buzzed in his ears and the loneliness of the desert bore down upon him with a physical weight and substance, seeming to slow his movements and his thinking.

His mouth felt chalky dry from the adrenalin hangover.

Voter!" He went quickly to the reserve tank under the seat, unscrewed the cap and checked the level.

"At least twenty, five lit res sop There was an aluminium canteen hanging beside the AK 47 in the rack, left by one of the grave, diggers Craig topped it up from the tank, and then took it to Timon.

Timon drank gratefully, gulping and choking in his haste to swallow. Then he lay back panting. Craig passed the canteen to Sally-Anne and then drank himself. Timon seemed a little easier, and Craig checked the dressings.

The bleeding was staunched for the moment.

"The first rule of desert survival, Craig reminded him self, "stay with the vehicle." But it didn't apply here. The vehicle would draw the pursuit likea beacon. Timon had mentioned spotter aircraft-On this open plain they would see the Land-Rover from thirty miles. Then there was the second patrol coming down from the Plumtree border-post. They would be here in a few hours.

They couldn't stay. They had to go on. He looked down at Timon, and understanding flashed between them.

"You'll have to leave me," Timon whispered.

Craig could not hold his eyes, or reply. Instead he climbed on to the roofagain and looked back.

Their tracks showed very clearly on the soft earth, filled with shadows by the lowering angle of the sun. He followed them with the eye towards the hazy horizon, and then started with alarm.

Something moved on the very edge of his vision. For long seconds he hop el it was a trick of light. Then it swelled up again, ll0e a wriggling caterpillar, floated free of earth on a lake of mirage, changed shape once more, anchored itself to earth again and became a line of armed men, running in Indian file, coming in on their tracks. The men of the Third Brigade had not abandoned the chase.

They were coming on foot, trotting steadily across the plain. Craig had worked with crack black troops before, he knew that they could keep up that pace for a day and a night.

He jumped down and found Timon's binoculars in the cubby beside the driver's seat.

"There is a foot patrol following us," he told them.

"How many?"Timon asked.

On the roof he focused the binoculars. "Eight of them they took casualties when the truck overturned." He looked back at the sun. It was reddening and losing heat, sinking into the ground haze. Two hours to sunset, Its he guessed.

"If you move me into a good place, I'll give you delaying fire," Timon told him. And as Craig hesitated, "Don't waste time arguing, Mr. Mellow."

Sally' Anne refill the canteen," Craig ordered. "Take the chocolate and high-Protein slabs from the emergency rations. Take the map and the compass and these binoculars." re around the stranded He was surveying the fields of ri m that flat terrain.

vehicle. No advantage to be wrung fro The only strong point was the Land' Rover itself. He knocked the drain plug out of the bottom of the gasoline tank and let the remaining fuel run into the sandy soil, to prevent a lucky shot torching the vehicle and Timon with een around the back it. Swiftly he built a rudimentary scr wheels, placing the spare wheels and the steel toolbox to cover Timon's flanks when they started to enfilade him.

He helped Timon out of the back seat and laid him belly down behind the rear wheels. The bleeding started 4 again, soaking the dressing, and Timon was grey as ash and sweating in bright little bubbles across his upper lip. Craig placed one of the AK 47S in his hands and arranged a seat cushion as an aiming rest in front of him. The box of spare magazines he set at Timon's right hand, five hundred rounds.

"I'll last until dark," Timon promised in a croak. "But leave me one grenade." They all knew what that was for. Timon did not want to be taken alive. At the very end he would hold the grenade to his own chest and blow it away.

Craig took the remaining five grenades and packed them into one of the rucksacks. He placed the British Airways bag that contained his papers and the book manuscript on top of them. From the toolbox he took a roll of light gauze wire and a pair of side cutters; from the ammunition box, six spare magazines for the AK 47. He divided the contents of the first-aid box, leaving two field dressings, a blister pack of pain-killers and a disposable syringe of morphine for Timon. The rest he tipped into his rucksack.

He glanced quickly around the interior of the Land Rover. Was there anything else he might need? A rolled plastic ground sheet in camouflage design lay on the door boards He stuffed that into the bag, and hefted it. That was all he could afford to carry. He looked across at Sally Anne She had the canteen slung on one shoulder, and the second rucksack op the other. She had rolled the portfolio of photographs and crammed them into the rucksack. She was very pale and the lump on her forehead seemed to have swelled even larger.

"Right?" Craig asked.

"Okay." He squatted beside Tiffton. "Goodbye, Captain,"he said.

"Goodbye, Mr. Mellow." Craig took his hand and looked into his eyes. He saw no fear there, and he wondered again at the equanimity with which the African can accept death. He had seen it often.

"Thank you, Timon for everything," he said.

"Hamba gashle," said Timon gently. "Go in peace."

"Shala ease," Craig returned the traditional response.

"Stay in peace." He stood up and Sally' Anne knelt in his place.

"You are a good man, Timon," she said, "and a brave one." Timon unfastened the flap of his holster and drew the pistol. It was a Chinese copy of the Tokarev type 51. He reversed it, and handed it to her, butt first. He said nothing, and after a moment she took it from him.

"Thank you, Timon." kc the grenade, it was for the very They all knew that, Ii nne pushed the weapon end the easier way out. Sally-A into the belt of her jeans, and then impulsively stooped and kissed Timon.

"Thank you," she said again, and stood up quickly and turned away.

Craig led her away at a trot. He looked back every few yards, keeping the vehicle directly between them and the approaching patrol. If they suspected that two of them had left the vehicle, they would simply leave half their men to attack it, and circle back onto the spoor again with the rest of the force.

Thirty-five minutes later they heard the first burst of automatic fire. Craig stopped to listen. The Land-Rover was just a little black pimple in the distance, with the dusk darkening and drooping down over it. The first burst was d answered by a storm of gunfire, many weapons firing together furiously.

"He's a good soldier," Craig said. "He would have made sure of that first shot. There aren't eight of them any more.

I'd bet on that." With surprise he saw that the tears were running down her cheeks, turning to muddy brown in the dust that coated her skin.

"It's not the dying," Craig told her quietly, "but the manner of it." She flared at him angrily. "Keep that literary Hemingway crap to yourself, buster! It's not you that's doing the dying." And then, contrite immediately, "I'm sorry, darling, my head hurts and I liked him so much." The sound of gunfire became fainter as they trotted on, until it was just a whisper like footsteps in dry brush far behind them.

"Craig!" Sally-Anne called, and he turned. She had fallen back twenty paces behind him and her distress was apparent. As soon as he stopped, she sank down and put her head between her knees.

"I'll be all right in a moment. It's just my head." Craig split open a blister pack of pain-killers from the first-aid box. He made her take two of them and swallow them with a mouthful of water from the canteen. The lump on her forehead frightened him. He put his arm around her and held her tightly.

"Oh, that feels good." She stumped against him.

On the silence of the desert dusk came the distant woof of an explosion, muted by distance, and Sally-Anne stiffened.

"What's that?"

"Hand grenade," he told her, and checked his wrist, watch. "It's over, but he gave us a start of fifty, five minutes.

Bless you, Timon, and God speed you."

"We mustn't waste it, "she told him determinedly and pulled herself to her feet. She looked back.

"Poor Timon, she said, and then set off again.

It would take them onTy minutes to discover that there was but one man defending the Land-Rover. They would the outgoing tracks almost immediately, and they would follow. Craig wondered how many Timon had taken out and how many there were left.

"We'll find out soon enough," he told himself, and the night came down with the swiftness of a theatre firecurtain.

New moon three days past, and the only light was from the stars. Orion stood tall on one hand, and the great cross blazed on the other. Through the dry desert air their brilliance was marvelous, and the milky way smeared the heavens like the phosphorescence from a firefly crushed between a child's fingers. The sky was magnificent, but when Craig looked back he saw that it gave enough light to pick out their footprints.

"Rest!" he told Sally-Anne, and she stretched out full length on the ground. With the bayonet from the AK 47 he chopped a bunch of scrub, wired it together and fastened the wire to the back of his belt.

"Lead!" he told her, saving energy with economy of words. She went ahead of him, no longer at a trot, and he dragged the bunch of dry scrub behind him. It swept the earth, and when he checked again, their footprints had dissolved.

Within the first mile the weight of the scrub dragging like an anchor from his belt was beginning to take its toll on his strength. He leaned forward against it. Three times in the next hour Sally-Anne asked for water. He grudged it to her. Never drink on the first thirst, one of the first survival laws. If you do, it will become insatiable, but she was sick and hurting from the head injury, and he did not have the heart to deny her. He did not drink himself.

Tomorrow, if they lived through it, would be a burning hell of thirst. He took the canteen from her, to remove temptation.

A little before midnight, he untied the wire from his belt; the dragging weight of the scrub thorn brush was too much for him, and if the Shana were still on their spoor, it would not serve much further purpose. Instead, he lifted the rucksack from Sally-Anne's back and slung it over his own shoulder.

J can manage it," she protested, although she was reeling likea drunkard. she had not complained once, although her face in the starlight was silver as the salt pan they were crossing.

He tried to think of something to comfort her.

"We must have crossed the border hours ago," he said.

"Does that mean we are saleP she whispered, and he could not bring himself to lie. She shivered.

The night wind cut through their thin clothing. He unfolded the nylon ground sheet and spread it over her shoulders, then he took her weight on his arm and led her on.

A mile further on they reached the far edge of the salt pan and he knew she could go no further that night.

There was a crusty bank eighteen inches high, and then firm ground again.

"We'll stop here." She sagged to the ground and he covered her with the ground sheet.

"Can I have a drink?"

"No. Not until morning." The water canteen was light, sloshing more than half, empty as he lowered the pack.

He cut a pile of scrub to break the wind and keep it off her head, and then pulled off her jogging shoes, massaging her feet and examining them by touch, "Oh, that stings." Her left heel was rubbed raw. He lifted it to his mouth and licked the abrasion clean, saving water. Then he dripped Mercurochrome on it and strapped it with a band-aid from the first, aid kit. He changed her socks from foot to foot, and then laced up her shoes again.

"You're so gentle, "she murmured, as he slipped under the ground sheet and took her in his arms, "and so warm."

"I love you," he said. "Go to sleep." She sighed and snuggled, and he thought she was asleep until she said softly, "Craig, I'm so sorry about King's Lynn." Then, at last, she did sleep, her breathing swelling deeply and evenly against his chest. He eased out from under the ground sheet and left her undisturbed. He went to sit on the low bank with the AK 47 across his knees, keeping the open pan under surveillance, waiting for them to come.

While he kept the watch, he thought about what Sally Anne had said.

He thought about King's Lynn. He thought of his herds of great red beasts, and the homestead on the hill. He thought about the men and the women who had lived there and bred their families there. He thought about the dreams he had fashioned from their lives and how he had planned to do with this woman what they had done.

My woman. He went back to where she lay and knelt over her to listen to her breathing, and he thought about her spread naked and open on the long table under the cruel scrutiny of many eyes.

He went back to wait at the edge of the pan and he thought about Tungata Zebiwe, and remembered the laughter and comradeship they had shared. He saw again the hand-signal from the dock as they led Tungata away.

"We are equal the score is levelled," and he shook his head.

He thought about once being a millionaire, and the millions he now owed. From a man of substance he had been reduced in a single stroke to something worse than a pauper. He did not even own the bundle of paper in the British Airways bag. The manuscript would be forfeit, his creditors would take that also. He had nothing, nothing except this woman and his rage.

Then the image of General Peter Fungabera's face filled his imagination smooth as hot chocolate, handsome as mortal sin, as powerful and as evil as Lucifer and his rage grew within him, until it threatened to consume him.

He sat through the long night without sleep, hating with all the strength of his being. Every hour he went back to where Sally-Anne slept and squatted beside her. Once he adjusted the ground sheet over her, another time he touched the lump on her forehead lightly with his fingertips and she whimpered in her sleep, then he went back to his vigil.

Once he saw dark shapes out on the pan, and his stomach turned over queasily, but when he put Timon's binoculars on them, he saw they were pale-coloured gemsbok, huge desert gazelle, large as horses, the diamond-patterned face masks that gave them their name showing c or in the starlight. They passed silently up, wind of where he sat and merged into the night.

Orion hunted down the sky and faded at dawn's first glimmering. It was time to go on, but he lingered, reluctant to put Sally-Anne to the terrors and the trials that day wou Id bring, giving her just those last few minutes of oblivion.

Then he saw them and his guts and his loins filled with the molten lead of despair. They were still far out across the pan, a darkness too large to be one of the desert animals, a darkness that moved steadily towards him. The scrub brush that he had dragged must have been effective to delay them so long. But once he had abandoned it, they would have come on swiftly down the deeply trodden spoor.

Then his despair changed shape. If it had to come, it might as well be now, he thought, this was as good a place as any to make their last stand. The Shana must come across the open pan, he he had the slight advantage afforded by the batbk and the sparse cover of knee-high scrub, but little time in which to exploit them.

He ran back to where he had left his rucksack, keeping doubled over so as to show no silhouette against the lightening sky. He stuffed the five grenades down the front of his shirt, snatched up the roll of wire and the side cutters, and hurried back to the edge of the bank.

He peered out at the advancing patrol. They were in single file because the pan was so open, but he guessed they r would spread out into a skirmishing line as soon as they reached the bank, adopting the classic arrowhead running formation that would give them overlapping cover, and prevent them being enfiladed by ambush.

Craig began to place his fragmentation grenades on that assumption. He sited them along the top of the bank, that slight elevation would spread the blast out a little more.

He wired each grenade securely to the stem of a bush, twenty paces apart, and then used a haywire twist to secure a single strand to each of the split pins that held down the ands back one at a time firing-handles. "Then he led the str ere Sally-Anne slept and secured them to to A the flap of his rucksack.

He was down on his knees now, for the light was coming up strongly and the patrol was closer each minute.

He readied the fifth and last grenade, and this time wriggled back on his belly. The strands of wire were spread out fanlike from where he lay behind the screen of cut brush. He checked the load of the AK 47 and placed the spare magazines at his right hand.

it was time to wake her. He kissed her softly on the lips, and she wrinkled her nose and made little mewing sounds, then she opened her eyes and love dawned green in them for an instant, to be replaced by dismay as she remembered their circumstances. She started to sit up, but he held her down with an arm over her chest.

"They are here, "he warned her. "I'm going to fight." She nodded.

"Have you got Timon's pistol?" She nodded again, groping for it in the waistband of her jeans.

"You do know how to use it?"

"Yes."

"Keep one bullet for the end." She stared at him.

"Promise you won't hesitate."

"I promise, "she whispered.

He lifted his head slowly. The patrol was four hundred yards out from the edge of the pan, and as he had guessed, they were already spreading into the arrowhead hunting formation.

As they separated from a single amorphous blot in the poor light, he was able to count them. Five! His spirits dropped again sharply. Timon had not done as well as he had hoped for. He had culled out only three of the original pursuit. Five was too many for Craig. Even with all the advantages of surprise and concealment, it was just too many.

"Keep your face down," he whispered. "It can shine likea mirror." Obediently she dropped it into the crook of her arm. He pulled up his shirt to cover his own mouth and nose, and watched them come on.

Oh God, they are good, he thought. Look at them move! They have been going all night, and they are still as sharp and wary as lynx. The point was a tall Shana who moved likea reed in the wind. He carried his AK 47 low on the right hip, anct he was charged with a deadly intensity of concentration. Once the light of coming dawn caught his eyes and they flashed like distant cannon-fire in the blackness of his face. Craig recognized him as the main man.

His drags, two on each side of him, were sombre, stocky figures, full of dark men ate and yet subservient to the man who led. They reactM like puppets to the hand-signals that the tall Shana gave them. "They came on silently towards the edge of the pan, and Craig arranged the wires across the palm of his left hand and ran them out between his fingers.

Fifty paces from the bank the Shana stopped them with a cut-out signal, and the line froze. The Shana's head turned slowly from side to side as he surveyed the low bank and the scrub beyond it. He took five paces forward, stepping lightly, and stopped again. His head turned once more, back and forth and then back again. He had seen something. Craig instinctively held his breath as the seconds drew out.

Then the Shana moved again. He swivelled and picked out his flanks, marking them with a stab of his forefinger, into a and then a pumped fist. Their formation changed reversed arrowhead the Shana had adopted the traditional fighting formation of the Nguni tribes, the 'bull's horns" that King Chaka had used to such terrible effect, and now the horns were moving to invade Craig's position.

Craig felt a surge of relief at his own foresight in spreading the grenades so widely. The two flank men would walk almost on top of his outside grenades. He sorted the wires in his hand, taking up the slack, and watching the flank men come on. He wished it had been the tall Shana, the danger man, but he had not moved again. He was still way back out of blast range, watching and directing the flanking movement.

The man on the right reached the bank, and gingerly stepped up onto it, but the man on the left was still ten paces out on the pan.

"Together," Craig whispered. "I've got to take them together." The man on the bank must have almost brushed the hidden grenade with his knee as Craig let him overrun it.

The man on the left reached the bank, there was a bloody bandage around his head, Timon's work. The grenade ig heaved with would be at about the level of his navel. Cra all his weight on the two outside wires, and heard the firing handles fly off the grenades with a metallic Twang!

Twang!

Three seconds delay on the primers, and the Shana were reacting with trained reflexes. The man on the bank dropped from sight, but Craig judged he was too close to the grenade to survive. The three others out on the pan went down also, firing as they dropped, rolling sideways as they hit the crust, firing again, raking the top of the bank.

Only the trooper out on the left, the wounded man, perhaps slowed by his injury, stayed on his feet those fatal seconds. The grenade exploded with the brilliance of a flashbulb, and the man was hit by fragmenting shrapnel.

He was lifted off his feet as the blast tore into his belly. On the right the other grenade burst in brief thunder, and Craig heard the taut, drum like sound of shrapnel slapping into flesh.

Two of the bastards, he thought, and tried for the tall Shana, but his aim was through scrub and over the lip of the bank, and the Shana was rolling. Craig's first burst kicked white salt inches short, but on line, his second burst was a touch left, and the Shana fired back and kept rolling.

One of the other troopers jumped up and charged the bank, jinking like a quarter-back with the ball, and Craig swung onto him. He hit him cleanly with a full burst, starting at the level of his crotch and pulling up across his belly and chest. The AK 47 was notorious for the way she rode up in automatic find Craig had compensated for it.

The trooper dropped his rifle, and spun around sharply, fell onto his knees and then toppled forward on his face likea Muslim at prayer.

The tall Shana was up, coming in, shouting an order, the second man followed. him twenty paces behind. Craig switched his aim back to' him exultantly. He couldn't miss now. The AK 47 Aked once, and then snapped on an empty chamber. The Shana kept on coming, untouched.

Craig was not as quick on the reload as he had once been; just that microsecond too late he swung back onto the Shana, and as he squeezed the trigger, the man dropped out of sight, below the rim of the bank, and Craig's burst flew high and harmless.

Craig swore, and swung left onto the last trooper who was just five paces from the safety of the bank. It was snap shooting, but a single lucky bullet out of the long burst hit him in the mouth, and snapped his head back likea heavy punch. The burgundy-red beret, glowing like a pretty bird in the dawn light, flew high in the air, and the trooper collapsed.

Four out of five in the first ten seconds, it was more than Craig could possibly have hoped for, but the fifth man, the danger man, was alive down there below the bank and he must have marked Craig's muzzle flashes.

He had Craig pinpointed.

"Keep under the sheet," Craig ordered Sally-Anne, and pulled the wires on the other three grenades. The explosions were almost simultaneous, a thunderous roll like the broadside of a man-of-war, and in the dust and flame, Craig moved.

He went forward and right, thirty running. paces, doubled over, with the reloaded AK in his hand, and he dived forward and rolled and then waited, belly down, covering the spot below the bank where the Shana had disappeared, but darting quick glances left and right.

The light was better, the dawn coming up fast, and the Shana moved. He came up over the bank, a brief silhouette against the white pan, quick as a mamba but where Craig had not expected him. He must have elbow-walked under the bank, and he was way out on Craig's left.

Craig swung the AK onto him, but held his fire, that quick chance wasn't good enough to betray his new position, and the Shana disappeared into the low brush j fifty paces away. Craig crawled forward to intercept, slowly as an earthworm, making no noise, raising no dust, and listening and staring with all his being. Long seconds drew out, slow as treacle, and Craig inched forward, knowing that the Shana must be working towards where he had left Sally-Anne.

Then Sally-Anne screamed. The sound raked his nerve ends like an emery wheel, and out of the brush they rose together, Sally-Anne fighting and clawing likea cat and the Shana holding her by the hair, down on his knees, but holding her easily, turning with her to frustrate any chance of a shot.

Craig charged. It was not a conscious decision. He found himself on his feet, hurling forward, swinging the AK 47 likea club. The Shana saw him, released Sally Anne and she staggered backwards and fell.

The Shana ducked under the swinging rifle, and hit Craig in the ribs with his shoulder as he came off his knees. The rifle flew from Craig's hands, and he grappled, holding desperately as he fought to regain the breath that had been driven out of him. The Shana, realizing that his rifle was useless in hand-to-hand contact, let it fall, and used both arms.

Craig knew in that first moment of contact that the Shana was simply too strong for him. He had height and weight and he was trained to the hardness of black anthracite. He whipped a long arm around the back of Craig's neck, but Craig, instead of resisting, put all his own weight into the direction of the Shana's pull. It took him by surprise, and they cartwheeled. As he went over, Craig kicked out with the metal leg but he didn't connect cleanly.

The Shana twisted and struck back at him. Craig smothered it and they locked, chest to chest, rolling first one on top, then the other, flattening the coarse scrub, their breathing hissing "into each other's face. The Shana snapped likea wolflat Craig's face with his square white teeth. If he got a grip, he would bite off Craig's nose or rip his cheek away. Craig had seen it done before in beer hall brawls.

Instead of pulling his head back, Craig butted forward with his forehead, and hit him in the mouth. One of the Shana's incisors snapped off at the gum and his mouth glutted with blood. Craig reared back to butt him again, but the Shana shifted over him and suddenly he had the trench knife out of its scabbard on his belt. Craig grabbed his wrist desperately, only just smothering the stab.

They rolled and the Shana came out on top, straddling Craig, the knife in his right hand probing with the bright silver point for Craig's throat and face. Craig got both hands to it, one on the Shana's wrist, the other into the A of his elbow, but he couldn't hold him. The knife cro point descended slowly towards him, and the Shana kicked his legs and locked one between Craig's, pinning him likea lover.

Down came the knife, and behind it, the Shana's face, swollen with effort, his broken tooth pink with blood, blood running from his chin and dripping into Craig's upturned face, his eyes mottled with tiny brown veins, bulging from their sockets and the knife came down.

Craig put all his strength against him. The knife point checked for a second, then moved down to touch Craig's skin in the notch where his collarbones met. It stung likea hypodermic needle as it pierced the skin. With a sense of horror, Craig felt the Shana's body gathering for the final thrust that would force the silver steel through his larynx and he knew that he could not prevent it.

Miraculously, the Shana's head changed shape, distorting likea rubber Halloween mask, collapsing upon itself, the contents of the skull bursting in a liquid fountain from his temple and the sound of a shot dinned in on Craig's eardrums. The strength went out of the Shana's body and he rolled off and flopped on the ground likea fresh-caught catfish.

ay, kneeling Craig sat up. Sally-Anne was only feet aw facing him, the Tokarev pistol held doublehanded, the barrel still pointing skywards where the recoil had thrown it. She must have placed the muzzle against the Shana's temple before she fired.

J killed him," she breathed gustily and her eyes were filled with honor.

"Thank God for id" Craig gasped, using the collar of his shirt to dry the nick on his throat.

"I've never killed anything before," Sally-Anne whispered.

"Not even a rabbit nor a fish nothing." She dropped the Pistol and started to dry, wash her hands, scrubbing one with the other, staring at the Shana's corpse. Craig crawled to her, and took her in his arms. She was shaking wildly.

"Take me away," she pleaded. "Please, Craig. I can smell the blood, take me away from here: "Yes. Yes." He helped her to her feet, and in a frenzy of haste rolled the ground sheet and buckled the straps of the rucksacks.

"This way." Burdened by both packs and the rifle, Craig led. aer away from t i ing grounc towards taste west.

They had been going for almost three hours and had stopped for the first sparing drink, before Craig realized his terrible oversight. The water bottles! In his panickly haste, he had forgotten to take the water bottles from the dead Shana.

He looked back longingly. Even if he left Sally-Anne here and went back alone, it would cost him four hours, and the Third Brigade patrols would surely be coming up.

He weighed the water bottle in his hand, a quarter fall: barely enough to see out this day, even if they laid up now and waited for nightfall and the cool, not nearly enough if they kept going and t9ey had to keep going.

The decision was made for him. The sound of a single engined aircraft throbbing down from the north. Bitterly he stared up into the pale desert sky, feeling the helplessness of the rabbit below the towering falcon.

"Spotter plane," he said, and listened to the beat of the engine. It receded for a while, and then grew stronger again.

"They are flying a grid search." As he spoke, he saw it. It was closer than he had thought, and much lower. He forced Sally' Anne down with a hand on her shoulder, and spread the cape over her, glancing back as he did so. It was coming on swiftly, a low winged single-engined monoplane. It altered course slightly, heading directly towards him. He dropped down beside Sally-Anne and crawled under the ground sheet beside her.

The engine roared louder. The pilot had spotted them.

Craig lifted a corner of the ground sheet and looked out.

"Piper Lance," said Sally-Anne softly.

It carried Zimbabwe Air Force rounders, and incongruously the pilot was a white man, but there was a black man in the right, hand seat, and he wore the dreaded ey both stared burgundy, red beret and silver cap-badge. Th onlessly as the Piper made a steep turn, with down expressi one wingtip pointed likea knife directly at where Craig lay. The black officer was holding the radio microphone to his lips. The wings of the Piper levelled and she came out turn, heading back the way she had come. The J of her throb of the engine receded and was lost in the desert silence.

Craig pulled Sally-Anne to her feet.

"Can you go on?" She nodded, pushing back the sweat-damp wisp of hair i from her forehead. Her lips were flaking, and the lower one had cracked through. A drop of blood sat on it likea tiny ruby.

"We must be well inside Botswana, the border road can't be far ahead. If we can find a Botswana police patrol-'

I.J

he road was single width, two continuous ruts running north and south, jinking now and then to avoid a spring-hare colony or a soft pan. it was patrolled regularly by the Botswana police on anti, poaching and prevention of alleged entry duties.

Craig and Sally-Anne reached the road in the middle of the afternoon. By this time Craig had discarded the rifle and ammunition, and stripped the pack of all but essentials.

He had even considered for a while burying his manuscript for later retrieval. It weighed eight pounds, but Sally-Anne had dissuaded him in a hoarse whisper.

The water bottle was empty. They had had their last drink, a blood-warm mouthful each, just before noon.

Their speed was reduced to little more than a mile an hour. Craig was no longer sweating. He could feel his tongue beginning to swell and his throat closing as the heat sucked the moisture out of him.

They reached the road. Craig's gaze was fastened grimly on the heat-smudged horizon ahead, all his being concentrated on lifting one foot and placing it ahead of the other.

They crossed the road vhthout seeing it, and kept going on into the desert. They were not the first to walk past the chance of succour and go on to death by thirst and exposure. They staggered onwards for two hours more before Craig stopped.

"We should have reacked the road by now, he whispered, and checked ee compass heading again. "The * I North isn't there." He was con compass must be wrong.

fused and doubting. "Damaged the bloody thing. We are too far south," he decided, and began the first aimless circle of the lost and totally disorientated, the graveyard spiral that precedes death in the desert.

An hour before sunset Craig stumbled over a dried brown vine growing in the grey soil. It bore only a single green fruit the size of an orange. He knelt and plucked it as reverently as if it had been the Cullinan diamond.

Mumbling to himself through cracked and bleeding lips, he split the fruit carefully with the bayonet. It was warm as living flesh from the sun.

"Gemsbok melon," he explained to Sally-Anne as she sat and watched him with dull, uncomprehending eyes.

He used the point of the bayonet to mash the white flesh of the melon, and then held the half shell to Sally Anne mouth. Her throat pumped in the effort of swallowing the clear warm juice, and she closed her eyes in ecstasy as it spread over her swollen tongue.

Working with extreme care, Craig wrung a quarter of a cupful of liquid from the fruit and fed it to her. His own throat ached and contracted at the smell of the liquid as he made her drink. She seemed to recharge with strength before his eyes, and when the last drop had passed between her lips, she suddenly realized what he had done.

"You?" she whispered.

He took the hard rind and the squeezed, out pith, and sucked on them.

"Sorry." She was distraught at her own thoughtlessness, but he shook his head.

J1!"

"Cool soon. Night." He helped her up, and they stumbled onwards.

Time telescoped in Craig's mind. He looked at the sunset and thought it was the dawn.

"Wrong." He took the compass and hurled it from him.

It did not fly very far. "Wrong wrong way." He turned, and led Sally' Anne back.

Craig's head filled with shadows and dark shapes, some were faceless and terrifying and he shouted soundlessly at them to drive them away. Some he recognized. Ashe Levy rode past on the back of a huge shaggy hyena, he was brandishing Craig's new manuscript, and his gold-rimmed spectacles glinted blindly in the sunset.

can't make a paperback sale," he gloated. "Nobody wants it, baby, you're finished. One,book man, Craig baby that's you." Then Craig realized that it was not his manuscript, but the wine list from the Four Seasons.

"Shall we try the Carton Charlemagne?" Ashe taunted Craig. "Or a magnum of the Widow?"

"Only witch-doctors ride hyena," Craig yelled back, no sound issuing from his desiccated throat. "Always knew you were-" Ashe hooted with malicious laughter, spurred the hyena into a gallop and threw the manuscript in the air. The white pages fluttered to the earth like roosting egrets, and when Craig went down on his knees to gather them, they turned to handfuls of dust and Craig found he could not rise. Sally-Anne was down beside him and as they clung to each other, the night came down upon them.

When he woke it was morning, and he could not rouse Sally-Anne. Her breathing snored and sawed through her nose and open mouth.

On his knees he dug. the hole for a solar still. Though the soil was soft and friable, it went slowly. Laboriously, still on his knees, he gathered an armful of the scattered desert vegetation. It seemed there was no moisture in the woody growth when he chopped it finely with the bayonet, and laid it in the bottom of his hole.

He cut the top off thWempty aluminium water bottle, and placed the cup this formed in the centre of the hole.

It required enormous concentration to perform even these simple tasks. He spread the plastic ground sheet over the hole, and anchored the edges with heaped earth. In the centre of the sheet he gently laid a single round of ammunition, so that it was directly above the aluminium cup.

Then he crawled back to Sally-Anne and sat over her so that his shadow kept the sun off her face.

"It's going to be all right," he told her. "We'll find the road soon. We must be close--2 orn his throat, He did not realize that no sound came fr and that she would not have been able to hear him even if it had.

"That little turd Ashe is a liar. I'll finish the book, you'll see. I'll pay off what I owe- We'll get a movie deal I'll buy King's Lynn. it will be all right. Don't worry, my darling." He waited out the baking heat of the morning, containing his impatience, and at noon by his wrist-watch he opened the still. The sun beating down on the plastic sheet had raised the temperature in the covered hole close to the boiling point. Evaporation from the chopped plants had sheet and run condensed on the under-side of the plastic down it towards the sag of the bullet. From there it had dripped into the aluminium cup.

He had collected half a pint. He took it up between both hands, shaking so violently that he almost spilled it.

He took a small sip and held it in his mouth. It was hot, but it tasted like honey and he had to use all his selfcontrol to prevent himself swallowing.

He leaned forward and placed his mouth over Sally Anne blackened and bleeding lips. Gently he injected id between them.

the lieu 11)rink, my sweet, drink it up." He found he was giggling stupidly as he watched her swallow painfully.

A few drops at a time he passed the precious fluid from his own mouth into hers and she swallowed each sip more easily, He kept the last mouthful for himself and let it to his head like strong trickle down his throat. It went drink and he sat grinning stupidly through fat, scaly black le red, the abraen and sun-baked purp lips, his face swoll scab, and leis ions on his cheek covered with a crusty weeping his bloodshot eyes gummed up with dried mucus.

He rebuilt the still and lay down beside Sally-Anne. He covered his face from the sun with the tail torn from his shirt and whispered, "All right find help soon. Don't worry my love-" But he knew that this was their last day. He could not keep her alive for another.

Tomorrow they would die. It would be either the sun or the men of the Third Brigade but tomorrow they would die.

t sunset the still gave them another half cup of distilled water, and after they had drunk it, they fell into a heavy, deathlike sleep in each other's arms.

Something woke Craig, and for a moment he thought it was the night wind in the scrub. With difficulty he pushed himself into a sitting position, and cocked his head to listen, not sure whether he was still hallucinating or whether he was truly hearing that soft rise and fall of sound. It must be nearly dawn, he realized, the horizon was a crisp dark line beneath the velvet drape of the sky.

Then abruptly the sound firmed, and he recognized it.

The distinctive beat of a four, cylinder Land-Rover engine.

The Third Brigade had not abandoned the hunt. They were coming on relentlessly, like hyenas with the reek of blood in their nostrils.

He saw a pair of headlights, far out across the desert, their pale beams swi Any and tilting as the vehicle covered mg the rough ground. He groped for the AK 47. He could not find it. Ashe Levy must have stolen it, he thought bitterly, taken it off with him on the hyena. "I never did trust the son-of-a-bitch." Craig stared hopelessly at the approaching headlights.

In their beams danced a little pixie-like figure, a diminutive yellow mannikin. "Puck," he thought. "Fairies. I never believed in fairies. Don't say that when you do, one dies.

Don't want to kill fairies. I believe in them." His mind was going, fantasy mixed with flashes of lucidity.

Suddenly he recognized that the little half-naked yellow mannikin was a Bushman, one of the pygmy desert race. A Bushman tracker, the Third Brigade were using a Bushman tracker to hunt them down. Only a Bushman could have run on their spoor all night, tracking by the headlights of the Land-Rover.

The headlights flashed over them, likea stage spotlight, and Craig lifted his hand to shade his eyes. The light was so bright that it hurt. He had the bayonet in his other hand behind his back.

I'll get one of them, he told himself I'll take one of them The Land-Rover stopped only a few paces away. The little Bushman tracker was standing near them, clicking and clucking in his strange birdlike language. Craig heard the door of the Land-Rover open behind the blinding lights, and a man came towards them. Craig recognize d him instantly. General Peter Fungabera he seemed as tall as a giant in the back lighting of the headlights as he strode towards where Craig huddled on the desert floor.

Thank you, God, Craig prayed, thank you for sending him to me before I died, and he gripped the bayonet. In the throat, he told himself, as he stoops over me. He marshalled all his remaining strength, and General Peter Fungabera stooped towards him. Now! Craig made the effort. Drive the point into his throat! But nothing happened. His limbs would not respond. He was finished. There was nothing left.

"I have to inform you that you are under arrest for illegal entry into the Republic of Botswana, sir," said General Fungabera but he had changed his voice. He was using a deep, gentle, caring voice, in heavily accented English.

He won't al me, Craig thought, the tricky bastard, and lo he saw that Peter Fungabera was wearing the uniform of a sergeant of Botswana police.

"You are lucky." He went down on one knee. "We found where you were crossing the road." He was holding a felt covered water bottle to Craig's mouth. "We have been following you, since three o'clock yesterday." Coo , sweet water gushed into Craig's mouth and ran down his chin. He let the bayonet drop and grabbed for the bottle with both hands. He wanted to gulp it all down at Once, he wanted to drown in it. It was so marvelous that his eyes flooded with tears.

Through the tears he saw the Botswana police crest on the open door of the Land' Rover

"Who?" he stared at Peter Fungabera, but he had never seen this face before. It was a broad, flat nosed face, puckered now with worry and concern, like that of a friendly bulldog.

"Who?" he croaked.

"Please not to talk, we must get you and the lady to hospital at Francistown pretty bloody quickly. Plenty people die in desert you goddamned lucky."

"You aren't General Fungabera?" he whispered. "Who are you?"

"Botswana police, border patrol. Sergeant Simon Mare, keng at your honour's service, sir." s a boy, before the great patriotic war, Colonel Nikolai Bukharili-had accompanied his father on the wolf hurfts, hunting the packs that terrorized their remote village in the high Urals during the long harsh winter months.

Those expeditions into the vast gloomy Taiga forest had nurtured in him a deep passion for the hunt. He enjoyed the solitude of wild places and the primeval joy of pitting all his senses against a dangerous animal. Eyesight, hearing, smell, and the other extraordinary sense of the born hunter that enabled him to anticipate the twists and evasions of his quarry all these the colonel still possessed in full strength, despite his sixty-two years. Together with a memory for facts and faces that was almost computer like they had enabled him to excel at his work, had seen him elevated to the head of his department of the Seventh commissariat where he had hunted professionally the most dangerous game of all man.

When he hunted boar and bear on the great estates reserved for the recreations of high officers of the GRU and KGB, he had alarmed his comrades and the gamekeepers by scorning to fire from the prepared hides and by going on foot alone into the thickest cover. The thrill of great physical danger had satisfied some deep need in him.

When the assignment on which he was now engaged had been channelled through to his office on the second floor of the central headquarters on Dzerzhinsky Square, he had recognized its importance immediately, and taken control of it personally. With careful cultivation, that first potential was gradually being realized, and when the time had come for Colonel Bukharin at last to meet his subject face to face on the ground over which they would manoeuvre, he had chosen the cover which best suited his tastes.

Russians, especially Russians of high rank, were objects of hostile suspicion in the new republic of Zimbabwe.

During the chimurenga, the war of independence, Russia had chosen the wrong horse and given her support to Joshua Nkomo's ZIPRA the Matabele revolutionary wing. As far as the government in Harare was concerned, the Russians were the new colonialist enemy, while it was China and North Korea who were the true friends of the revolution.

For these reasons, Colonel Nikolai Bukharin had entered Zimbabwe on a Finnish passport, bearing a false name. He spoke Finnish fluently, as he did five other languages, including English. He needed a cover under which he could freely leave the city of Harare, where his every move wou watch over, and go out into t -le unpopulated wilderness where he could meet his subject without fear of surveillance.

Although many of the other African republics under pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund had banned big-game hunting, Zimbabwe still licensed professional hunters to operate their elaborate safaris in the designated "controlled hunting areas'. These were large earners of foreign exchange for the embattled economy.

It amused the colonel to pose as a prosperous timber merchant from Helsinki, and to indulge his own love of the hunt in this decadent manner reserved almost exclusively for the financial aristocrats of the capitalist system.

Of course, the budget that had been allocated for this operation could not stand such extravagance. However, General Peter Fungabera, the subject of the operation, was a wealthy and ambitious man. He had made no difficulties when Colonel Bukharin had suggested that they use a big game hunting safari as d cover for their meeting, and that General Fungabera, should be allowed the honour of acting as host and of paying the thousand dollars der them that the safari cost.

Standing in the centre of the small clearing now, Colonel Bukharin looked at his man. The Russian had deliberately wounded the bull Nikolai Bukharin was a fine shot with pistol, title and shotgun, and the range had been thirty yards. If he had chosen, he could have placed a bullet in either of the bull's eyes, in the very centre of the bright black pupil. Instead he had shot the animal through the belly, a hand's width behind the lungs so as not to impair its wind, but not far enough back to damage the hindquarters and so slow it down in the charge.

It was a marvelous bull, with a mountainous boss of black horn that would stretch fifty inches or more around the curve from point to point. A fifty-inch bull was a trophy few could match, and as he had drawn first blood it would belong to the colonel no matter who delivered the COup de grdce. He was smiling at Peter Fungabera as he poured vodka into the silver cup of his hip-flask.

"No Zdorovye!" he saluted Peter, and tossed it down without blinking, refilled the silver cup and offered it to him.

Peter was dressed in starched and crisply ironed fatigues with his name to on the breast, and a khaki silk scarf at his throat, but he was bare-headed with no insignia to sparkle in the sunlight and alarm the game.

He accepted the silver cup and looked over the rim at the Russian.

He was as tall as Peter, but even slimmer, erect as a man thirty years younger. His eyes were a peculiarly pale, cruel blue. His face was riven with the scars Of war and of other ancient conflicts, so that it was a miniature lunar landscape. His skull was shaven, the fine stubble of hair that covered it was silver and sparkled in the sunlight like glass fibres.

Peter Fungabera enjoyed this man. He enjoyed the aura of power that he wore like an emperor's cloak. He enjoyed the innate cruelty of him that was almost African, and which Peter understood perfectly. He enjoyed his deviousness, the layering of lies and truths and half truths so that they became indistinguishable. He was excited by the sense of danger that exuded from. him so powerfully that it had almost an odour of its own. "We are the same breed," Peter thought, as he lifted the silver cup and returned the salute He drank down the pungent spirit at one swallow. Then" breathing carefully so as not to show the smallest sign of distress, he handed back the cup.

"You drink likea man," Nikolai Bukharin admitted. "Let us see if you hunt like one." Peter had guessed correctly. It had been a test: the voc ca and the buffalo bull, both of them. He shrugged to show his indifference, and the Russian beckoned to the professional hunter who stood respectfully out of earshot.

The hunter was a Zimbabwe-born white man, in his late thirties, dressed for the part in wide-brimmed hat and khaki gi let with heavy-calibre cartridges in the loops across his breast. He had a thick curly dark beard and an extremely unhappy expression on his face, as befits a man who is about to follow a gun-shot buffalo bull into dense riverine bush.

"General Fungabera will take the.458," Colonel Bukharin said, and the hunter nodded miserably. How had this strange old bastard managed to make a muck-up of a sitting shot like that? He had been shooting like a Bisley champion u The hunter suppressed a shiver and snapped his fingers for p to now. Christ, but that bush looked really nasty.

the number two gunbearer to bring up the heavy rifle.

"You will wait here with the bearers," said the Russian quietly.

"Sir!" the hunter protested quickly. J can't let you go in alone.

I'd lose my licence. It's just not on-"

"Enough,"said Colo nO Bukharin.

"But, sit, you don't understand-"

"I said, enough!" The Russian never raised his voice, but those pale eyes silenced the younger man completely. He found suddenly that he was more afraid of this man than of losing his licence, or of the wounded bull in the bush and leapped back thankfully.

ahead. He subsided ste The Russian took The.458 from the gunbearer, shot the bolt back to check that it was loaded with soft-tipped bullets, and then handed it to Peter Fungabera. Peter took it from him, smiling slightly, hefted it, then handed it back to the gunbearer. Colonel Bukharin raised one silver eyebrow and smiled also.

The smile was mockery shaded with contempt.

Peter spoke sharply in Shana to the bearer, Th he, mambo! The man ran, and snatched another weapon from one of the other back bearers. He brought it back to Peter, clapping softly to show his respect.

Peter weighed this new weapon in his hands. It was a short-shafted stabbing assegai. The handle was of hardwood bound with copper wire. The blade was almost two feet long and four inches broad.

Carefully Peter shaved the hairs off the back of his thumb with the edge of the silver blade, then, deliberately, he shrugged off his jacket and stripped his trousers and jungle boots.

Dressed only in a pair of olive-green shorts and carrying the stabbing assegai, he said, "This is the African way, Colonel." The Russian was no longer smiling. "But I do not expect a man of your years to hunt the same way." Peter excuse d him courteously. "You may use your rifle again." The Russian nodded, conceding the exchange. He had lost that one, but now let's see if this black mtqik can make good his boast. Bukharin looked down at the spoor. The great hoof prints were the size of soup plates, and the thin watery gouts of blood were tinged with greenish-yellow dung from the ruptured bowels.

91 will track," he said. "You will watch for the break." They moved off easily, with the Russian five paces ahead, stooped attentively to the blood spoor, and Peter Fungabera drifting behind him, the assegai held underhand, and his dark eyes covering the bush ahead with a steady rhythmic sweep, trained eyes not expecting to see the whole animal, searching for the little things, perhaps the shine of a wet muzzle or the drooping curve of a great horn.

Within twenty paces the bush closed in around them.

It was sultry green as a hothouse, dank vegetation pressing breathlessly around them. The air stank of the rotting leaf mould that deadened their footfalls. The silence was oppressive, so that the drag of a thorny branch across the Russian's leather leggings sounded loud as a truck engine.

He was sweating; perspiration soaked his shirt in a dark patch between the shoulder-blades and sparkled like dewdrops on the back of his neck. Peter could hear his ing, deep and harsh, but knew instinctively that it breath was not fear that worked in the Russian, but the pervading excitement of the hunter.

Peter Fungabera did not share it. There was a coldness in him where his own fear should have been. He had trained himself to that during the chimurenga. This was a necessary task, this thing with the assegai. It was to impress the Russian only, and with all fear and feeling anaesthetized by the coldness, Peter Fungabera prepared himself.

He felt his muscles charging, felt the tension build in his sinews and nerves until he was like an arrow, notched -bow against the curve of the long With his eyes he swept the bush directly in the run of the spoor only lightly, and concentrated his main attention on the flanks. This beast that they were hunting was the most cunning of all the dangerous game of Africa, except perhaps the leopard. But it was possessed of the brute strength of a hundred' leopards The lion will growl before he charges, the elephant will turn under the punishment of heavy bullets in the chest, but the Cape buffalo comes and in silence, and only one thing will stop his charge that is death.

A big, metallic-blue fly settled on Peter Fungabera's lip and crawled into his nostril. So complete was his concentration that he did not feel it, or brush it away. He watched the flanks, he concentrated the very essence of his being on the flanks.

The Russian checked, examining the change in the spoor, the plant of solid hooves, the puddle of loose bloody dung. This was where the bull had stood, after his first wild run. Peter Fungabera could imagine him, standing massive and black, with his nose held high, looking back towards the hunters with the spreading agony in his guts and liquid faeces from his torn intestines beginning to ooze uncontrollably down his quarters. Here he had stood and listened and heard their voices, and the hatred and anger had begun to seethe in him. Here the killing rage had begun.

He had dropped his head, and gone on, humping his back against the agony in his bowels, sustained by the rage within him.

The Russian glanced back at Peter, and they did not have to speak.

In unison they moved forward.

The bull was acting on an atavistic memory: everything he did had been done countless times before by his ancestors. From that first wild gallop as he received the bullet, the stop to listen and peer back, the gathering of great muscles, and now the more sedate trot, angling to resent his haunches to the fitful breeze so that the scent of the hunters would be borne down to him, great armoured head swinging from side to side as he began the search for the ambush point, it was all part of a pattern.

"Me bull crossed a narrow clearing ten paces across, forced his head into the wall of glossy green leaves on the far side, leaving it smeared with fresh bright blood, and went on another fifty yards. Then he turned sharply aside, and started back in a wide circle. Now he moved with deliberate stealth, insinuating his bulk gently through the intertwined creeper and branch a single pace at a time until he came back to the clearing again.

Here he stopped, hidden on the far edge of the clearing, covering from the side his own bloody tracks across the narrow opening, his body screened entirely by dense growth, and a terrible stillness settled upon him. He let the stinging flies feast on his open wound without shuddering his skin or swinging his tail. He did not twitch either of his large, Cup-shaped ears but strained them forward.

Not even his eyes blinked as he peered back along the blood spoor and waited for the hunters to come.

The Russian stepped lightly into the clearing, his gaze darting ahead to where blood painted branches hung on the far side and a huge body had forced its way through into the forest beyond. He started forward quietly. Peter Fungabera followed him, watching the flanks, moving likea dancer, his body glowing with a light sheen of sweat, the flat, hard muscle in his chest and arms changing shape at his slightest movement.

He saw the bull's eye. It caught the light likea new coin, and Peter froze. He snapped the fingers of his left hand, and the Russian froze with him. Peter Fungabera stared at the bull buffalo's eye, not quite sure what he was seeing, but knowing that it was in the right place thirty yards out on the left. If the bull had doubled, that was where he would be.

Peter blinked his eyes, and suddenly the image cleared.

He was no longer focused only on the eye, and so he could see the curve of one horn held so still that it could have been a branch. He saw the crenellations of the boss meeting above the bull's eye, and now he looked into the eye itself and it was likea glimpse into hell.

The bull charged. The forest burst open before his rush, branches crackled and broke, the leaves shook and fluttered as though struck by a hurricane and the bull came out into the clearing. He came out crabbing sideways, a deceptive but characteristic feint that had lulled many a hunter until the sudden direct I ge at the end.

He came fast. uhnsetemed impossible that any beast so enormous could move so fast. He was broad and tall as a granite kopje, his back and shoulder crusted with dried mud from the wallow, and there were obscene silvery bald patches on his shoulders and neck, crisscrossed with the long-healed scars of thorn and lions" claws.

From his open jaws drooled silver ropes of saliva, and tears had tracked wet lines down his hairy cheeks. A man could barely have encompassed that neck with both arms, or matched the spread of those horns with arms extended.

In the skin folds of his throat hung bunches of blue ticks like ripe grapes, and the rank bovine smell of him was choking in the hothouse of the forest.

He came on, majestic in his killing rage, and Peter Fungabera went out to meet him. He passed in front of the Russian just as Colonel Bukharin swung up the stubby heavy-calibre rifle, screening the shot, forcing him to throw the barrel up towards the sky. Peter moved likea dark forest wraith, crossing the bull at the opposite angle to his crabbing charge, taking him off balance so that the bull hooked at him likea boxer punching as he moves away, not timing the swing of horns, not sighting true, and Peter swayed away from it with his upper body only, letting the curved point hiss past his ribs by the breadth of a hand and then swaying back as the bull's head was flung high at the finish of the stroke.

In that instant the bull was open, from his reaching chin to the soft folds of skin between his forelegs, and Peter Fungabera put the fall weight of his body and all the momentum of his run behind the silver blade.