Shout at the Devil

Three old eland bulls came up from the river, bigger than domestic cattle, light bluey-brown in colour with faint chalk stripes across the barrel of their bodies, they walked in single file, heavy dewlaps swinging, thick stubby horns held erect, and the tuft of darker hair on their foreheads standing out clearly. They reached the grove of fever trees and the lead bull stopped, suddenly alert. For long seconds they stood absolutely still, staring into the open palisade of fever-tree trunks where the light was still vague beneath the canopy of interlaced leaves and branches.

The lead bull blew softly through his nostrils, and swung off the game path that led into the grove. Stepping lightly for such large animals, the three eland skirted the grove and moved away to blend into the dry Thorn scrub higher up the slope.

"He is in there," whispered Mohammed. "The eland saw him, and turned aside."

"Yes," agreed Flynn. "It is such a place as he would choose to lie up for the day." He sat in the crotch of a M'bongo tree,

wedged securely ten feet above the ground, and peered across three hundred yards of open grassland at the dense stand of fever trees. The hands that held the binoculars to his eyes were unsteady with gin and excitement, and he was sweating, a droplet broke from his hair-line and slid down his cheek, tickling like an insect. He brushed it away.

"A wise man would leave him, and walk away even as the eland did."

Mohammed gave his opinion. He leaned against the base of the tree,

holding Flynn's rifle across his chest. Flynn did not reply. He peered through the binoculars, swinging them slowly in an arc as he searched.

"He must he deep among the trees, I cannot see him from here." And he loosened his leg grip from the crotch and clambered down to where

Mohammed waited. He took his rifle and checked the load.

"Leave him, Fini," Mohammed urged softly. "There is no profit in it. We cannot carry the teeth away."

"Stay here," said Flynn.

Fini, the Allemand will hear you. They are close very close."

"I will not shoot, "said Flynn. "I must see him again that is all. I

will not shoot." Mohammed took the gin bottle from the haversack and handed it to him. Flynn drank.

"Stay here,", he repeated, his voice husky from the burn of the raw spirit.

"Be careful, Fini. He is an old one of evil temper be careful." Mohammed watched Flynn start out across the clearing. He walked with the slow deliberation of a man who goes in good time to a meeting that has long been prearranged. He reached the grove of fever trees and walked on into them without checking.

Plough the Earth was sleeping on his feet. His little eyes closed tightly in their wrinkled Pouches. Tears had oozed in a long dark stain down his cheeks, and a fine haze of midges hovered about them.

Tattered as battle-riven banners on a windless day, his ears lay back against his shoulders. His tusks were crutches that propped up the gnarled old head, and his trunk hung down between them, grey and stack and heavy.

Flynn saw him, and picked his way towards him between the trunks of the fever trees. The setting had an unreal quality, for the light effect of the low sun through the branches was golden beams reflected in shimmering misty green from the leaves of the fever trees. The grove was resonant with the whine of cicada beetles.

Flynn circled out until he was head on to the sleeping elephant,

and then he moved in again. Twenty paces from him Flynn stopped. He stood with his feet set apart, the rifle held ready across one hip, and his head thrown back as he looked up at the unbelievable bulk of the old bull.

Up to this moment Flynn still believed that he would not shoot.

He had come only to look at him once more, but it was as futile as an alcoholic who promised himself just one taste. He felt the madness begin at the base of his spine, hot and hard it poured into his body,

filling him as though he were a container. The level rose to his throat and he tried to check it there, but the rifle was coming up. He felt the butt in his shoulder. Then he heard with surprise a voice, a voice that rang clearly through the grove and instantly stilled the whine of the cicadas. It was his own voice, crying out in defiance of his conscious resolve.

"Come on, then," he shouted. And the old elephant burst from massive quiescence into full charge. It came down on him like a dynamited cliff of black rock. He saw it over the open rear sight of his rifle, saw it beyond the minute pip of the foresight that rode unwaveringly in the centre of the old bull's bulging brow between the eyes, where the crease of skin at the base of its trunk was a deep lateral line.

The shot was thunderous, shattering into a thousand echoes against the holes of the fever trees. The elephant died in the fullness of his run. Legs buckled, and he came toppling forward, carried by his own momentum, a loose avalanche of flesh and bone and long ivory.

Flynn turned aside like a matador from the run of the bull, three quick dancing steps and then one of the tusks hit him. It took him across the hip with a force that hurled him twenty feet, the rifle spinning from his hands so that as he fell and rolled in the soft bed of loose trash and leaf Mould, his lower body twisted away from his trunk at an impossible angle. His brittle old bones had broken like china; the ball of the femur snapping off in its socket, his pelvis fracturing clear through.

Lying face down, Flynn was mildly surprised that there was no pain. He could feel the jagged edges of bone rasping together deep in his flesh at his slightest movement, but there was no pain.

Slowly, pulling himself forward on his elbows so that his legs slithered uselessly after him, he crawled towards the carcass of the old bull.

He reached it, and with one hand stroked the yellowed shaft of ivory that had crippled him.

"Now," he whispered, fondling the smoothly polished tusk the way a man might touch his firstborn son. "Now, at last you are mine." And then the pain started, and he closed his eyes and cowered down, huddled beneath the hillock of dead and cooling flesh that had been Plough the

Earth. The pain buzzed in his ears like cicada beetles, but through it he heard Mohammed's voice.

Fini. It was not wise." He opened his eyes and saw Mohammed's monkey face puckered with concern.

"Call Rosa," he croaked. "Call Little Long Hair. Tell her to come." Then he closed his eyes again, and rode the pain. The tempo of the. pain changed constantly first it was drums, torn-toms that throbbed and beat within him. Then it was the sea, long undulating swells of agony. Then again it was night, cold black night that chilled him so he shivered and moaned and the night gave way to the sun. A great fiery ball of pain that burned and shot out lances of blinding light that burst against his clenched eyelids. Then the drums began again.

Time was of no significance. He rode the pain for a minute and a million years, then through the beat of the drums of agony he heard movement near him. The shuffle of feet through the dead leaves, the murmur of voices that were not part of his consuming anguish.

"Rosa," Flynn whispered, "you have come!" He rolled his head and forced his eyelids open.

Herman Fleischer stood over him. He was grinning. His face flushed as a rose petal, fresh sweat clinging in his pale eyebrows,

breathing quickly and heavily with exertion as though he had been running, but he was grinning.

"So!" he wheezed. "So!" The shock of his presence was muted for

Flynn by the haze of pain in which he lay. There were smears of dust dulling the gloss of Fleischer's jackboots, and dark patches of sweat had soaked through the thick grey corduroy tunic at the armpits. He held a Luger pistol in his right hand and with his left hand he pushed the slouch hat to the back of his head.

"Herr Flynn!" he said and chuckled. It was the fat infectious chuckle of a healthy baby.

Mildly Flynn wondered how Fleischer had found him so quickly in the broken terrain and thick bush. The shot would have alerted him,

but what had led him directly to the grove of fever trees?

Then he heard a rustling fluting rush in the air above him, and he looked upwards. Through the lacework of branches he saw the vultures spiralling against the aching blue of the sky. They turned and dipped on spread black wings, cocking their heads sideways in flight to look down with bright beady eyes on the elephant carcass.

"Ja! The birds. We followed the birds."

"Jackals always follow the birds, whispered Flynn, and Fleischer laughed. He threw back his head and laughed with genuine delight.

"Good. Oh, ja. That is good." And he kicked Flynn. He swung the jackboot lazily into) Flynn's body, and Flynn shrieked. The laughter dried instantly in Fleischer's throat, and he bent quickly to examine

Flynn.

He noticed for the first time how his lower body was grotesquely twisted and distorted. And he dropped to his knees beside him. Gently he touched Flynn's forehead, and deep concern flashed across his chubby features at the clammy cold feeling of the skin.

"Sergeant!" There was a desperate edge to his voice now.

"This man is badly injured. He will not last long. Be quick!

Get the rope! We must hang him before he loses consciousness."

Rosa awoke in the dawn and found that she was alone. Beside Flynn's personal pack, his discarded blanket had been carelessly flung aside.

His rifle was gone.

She was not alarmed, not at first. She guessed that he had gone into the bush on one of his regular excursions to be alone while he drank his breakfast. But an hour later when he had not returned she grew anxious. She sat with her rifle across her lap, and every bird noise or animal scuffle in the ebony thicket jarred her nerves.

Another hour and she was fretting. Every few minutes she stood up and walked to the edge of the clearing to listen. Then she went back to sit and worry.

Where on earth was Flynn? Why had Mohammed not returned? What had happened to Sebastian? Was he safe, or had he been discovered?

Had Flynn gone to assist him?

Should she wait here, or follow them down the draw?

Her eyes haunted, her mouth hard set with doubts, she sat and twisted the braid of her hair around one finger in a nervously restless gesture.

Then Mohammed came. Suddenly he appeared out of the thicket beside her, and Rosa jumped up with a low cry of relief. The cry died in her throat as she saw his face.

Mohamed said. "He is hurt. The great elephant has broken his bones and he lies in pain. He asks for you." Rosa stared at him,

appalled, not understanding.

An elephant?"

"He followed Plough the Earth, the great elephant,

and killed him. But in dying the elephant struck him, breaking him."

"The fool. Oh, the fool!" Rosa whispered. "Now of all times. With

Sebastian in danger, he must..." And then she caught herself and broke off her futile lament. "Where is he, Mohammed? Take me to him."

Mohammed led along one of the game paths, Rosa ran behind him. There was no time for caution, no thought of it as they hurried to find

Flynn. They came to the stream of the Abati, and swung off the path,

staying on the near bank. They plunged through a field of arrow grass,

skirted around a tiny swamp and ran on into a stand of buffalo thorn.

As they emerged on the far side Mohammed stopped abruptly and looked at the sky.

The vultures turned in a high wheel against the blue, like debris in a lazy whirlwind. The spot above which they circled lay half a mile ahead.

"Daddy!" Rosa choked on the word. In an instant all the hardness accumulated since that night at Lalapanzi disappeared from her face.

"Daddy!" she said again, and then she ran in earnest.

Brushing past Mohammed, throwing her rifle aside so it clattered on the earth, she darted out of the buffalo thorn and into the open.

"Wait, Little Long Hair. Be careful." Mohammed started after her.

In his agitation he stepped carelessly, full on to a fallen twig from the buffalo thorn. There was a worn spot on the sole of his sandal,

and three inches of cruet red tipped thorn drove up through it and buried in his foot.

For a dozen paces he struggled on after Rosa, hopping on one leg,

flapping his arms to maintain his balance and calling, but not too loudly.

"Wait! Be careful, Little Long Hair." But she took not the least heed, and went away from him, leaving him at last to sink down and tend to his wounded foot.

She crossed the open ground before the fever-tree grove with the slack, blundering steps of exhaustion. Running silently, saving her breath for the effort of reaching her father. She ran into the grove,

and a drop of perspiration fell into her eye, blurring her vision so she staggered against one of the trunks. She recovered her balance and ran on into the midst of them.

She recognized Herman Fleischer instantly. She had run almost against his chest, and his huge body towered over her. She screamed with shock and twisted away from the beanlike arms outspread to clutch her.

Two of the native Askari who were working over the crude litter on which lay Flynn O'Flynn, jumped up. As she ran they closed on her from either side, the way a pair of trained greyhounds will course a hare.

They caught her between them, and dragged her struggling and screaming to where Herman Fleischer waited.

"Ah, so!" Fleischer nodded pleasantly in greeting. "You have come in time for the fun." Then he turned to his sergeant. "Have them tie the woman." Rosa's screams penetrated the light mists of insensibility that screened Flynn's brain. He stirred on the litter, muttering incoherently, rolling his head from side to side, then he opened his eyes and focused them with difficulty. He saw her struggling between the Askari and he snapped back into full consciousness.

"Leave her!" he roared. "Call those bloody animals off her.

Leave her, you murderous bloody German bastard."

"Good!" said Herman

Fleischer. "You are awake now." Then he lifted his voice above Flynn's bellows. "Hurry, Sergeant, tie the woman and get the rope up." While they secured Rosa, one of the Askari shinned up the smooth yellow trunk of a fever tree. With his bayonet he hacked the twigs from the thick horizontal branch above their heads. The sergeant threw the end of the rope up to him, and at the second attempt the Askari caught it and passed it over the branch. Then he dropped back to earth.

There was a hangman's knot fixed in the rope, ready for use.

"Set the knot, said Fleischer, and the sergeant went to where

Flynn lay. With poles cut from a small tree they had rigged a combination litter and splints. The poles had been laid down Flynn's flanks from ankle to armpit, with bark strips they had bound them firmly so that Flynn's body was held rigidly as that of an Egyptian mummy, only his head and neck were free.

The sergeant stooped over him, and Flynn fell silent, watching him venomously. As his hands came down with the noose to loop it over

Flynn's head, Flynn moved suddenly. He darted his head for-ward like a striking adder and fastened his teeth in the man's wrist. With a howl the sergeant tried to pull away, but Flynn held on, his head jerking and wrenching as the man struggled.

"Fool" grunted Fleischer, and strode over to the litter.

He lifted his foot and placed it on Flynn's lower body. As he brought his weight down on it Flynn stiffened and gasped with pain,

releasing the Askari's wrist.

"Do it this way." Fleischer lunged forward and took a handful of

Flynn's hair, roughly he yanked Flynn's head forward. "Now, the rope,

quickly." The Askari dropped the noose over Flynn's head and drew the slip-knot tight until it lay snugly under Flynn's ear.

"Good." Fleischer stepped back. "Four men on the rope," he ordered. "Gently. Do not jerk the rope. Walk away with it slowly. I

don't want to break his neck." Rosa's hysteria had stilled into cold horror as she watched the preparations for the execution, and now she found her voice again.

"Please," she whispered. "He's my father. Please don't.

Oh, no, please don't."

Hush, girl,"

"You'd not shame me now by " pleading with this fat bag of pus."

roared Flynn.

He swivelled his head, his eyes rolled towards the four Askari who stood ready with the rope end.

"Pull! You black sons of bitches. Pull! And damn you. I'll beat you to hell, and speak to the devil so he'll have you castrated and smeared with pig's fat."

"You heard what Fini told you," smiled Fleischer at his Askari. "Pull!" And they walked backwards in single file,

shuffling through the dead leaves, leaning against the rope.

The litter lifted slowly at one end, came upright and then left the ground.

Rosa turned away and clenched her eyelids tight closed, but her hands were bound so she could not stop her ears, she could not keep out the sounds that Flynn Patrick O'Flynn made as he died.

When at last there was silence, Rosa was shivering. Bar spasms that shuddere&through her whole body.

"All right," said Herman Fleischer. "That's it. Bring the woman.

We can get back to camp in time for lunch if we hurry." When they were gone, the litter and its contents still hung in the fever tree.

Swinging a little and turning slowly on the end of the rope. Near it lay the carcass of the elephant, and a vulture planed down slowly and made a flapping ungainly landing in the top branches of the fever tree.

It sat hunched and suspicious, then suddenly squawked and launched again into noisy flight, for it had seen the man coming.

The little old man limped slowly into the grove. He stopped beside the dead elephant and looked up at the man who had been his master and his friend.

"Go in peace, Fini." said Mohammed.

The alleyway was a narrow low-roofed corridor, the bulkheads were painted a pate grey that glistened in the harsh light of the electric globes set in small wire cages at regular intervals along the roof.

At the end of the corridor, a guard stood outside the heavy watertight door in the bulkhead that led through into the handling room of the forward magazine. The guard wore only a thin white singlet and white flannel trousers, but his waist was belted in a blanc oed webbing from which hung a sheathed bayonet, and there was a Mauser rifle slung from his shoulder.

From his position he could look into the handling room, and he could keep the full length of the alleyway under surveillance.

A double file of Wakarnba tribesmen filled the alleyway, living chains along one of which passed the cordite charges; along the other the nine-inch shells.

The Africans worked with the stoical indifference of draught animals, turning to grip the ly cylindro-conical ug shells, hugging a hundred and twenty pounds" weight of steel and explosive to their chests while they moved it on to the next man in the chain.

The cordite charges, each wrapped in thick paper, were not so weighty and moved more swiftly along their line.

Each man bobbed and swung as he handled his load, so it seemed that the two ranks were sets in a complicated dance pattern.

From this mass of moving humanity rose clouds of warm body odour,

that filled the alleyway and defeated the efforts of the air-conditioning fans.

Sebastian felt sweat trickling down his chest and back under the leather cloak, he felt also the tug of weight within the folds of the cloak each time he swung to receive a fresh cordite charge from his neighbour.

He stood just outside the door of the handling room, and each time he passed a charge through, he looked into the interior of the magazine where another gang was at work, ac king the charges into the shelves that lined the bulkheads, and easing the nine-inch shells into their steel racks.

Here there was another armed guard.

The work had been in progress since early that morning, with a half-hour's break at noon, so the German guards had relaxed their vigilance. They were restless in anticipation of relief. The one in the magazine was a fat middle-aged man who at intervals during the day had broken the monotony by releasing sudden ear-splitting posterior discharges of gas.

With each salvo he had clapped the nearest African porter on the back and shouted happily.

"Have a bite at that one!" or, "Cheer up it doesn't smell." But at last he also was deflated. He slouched across the handling room,

and leaned against the angle of the door to address his colleague in the alleyway.

"It's hot as hell, and smells like a zoo. These savages stink."

"You've been doing your share."

"I'll be glad when it's finished."

"It's cooler in the magazine with the fans running you are all right." Jesus, I'd like to sit down for a few minutes."

"Better not,

Lieutenant Kyller is on the prowl." This exchange was taking place within a few feet of Sebastian. He followed the German conversation with more ease now that he had been able" to exercise his rusty vocabulary, but he kept his head down in a renewed burst of energy. He was worried. In a short while the day's shift would end and the

African porters would be herded on deck and into the launches to be transported to their camp on one of the islands. None of the native labour force were allowed to spend the night aboard Blucher.

He had waited since noon for an opportunity to enter the magazine and place the time charge. But he had been frustrated by the activities of the two German guards. It must be nearly seven o'clock in the evening now. It would have to be soon, very soon. He glanced once more into the magazine, and he caught the eye of Walaka,

Mohammed's cousin. Walaka stood by the cordite shelves, supervising the packing, and now he shrugged at Sebastian in eloquent helplessness.

Suddenly there was a thud of a heavy object being dropped to the deck, and a commotion of shouts in the alleyway behind Sebastian. He glanced round quickly. One of the bearers had fainted in the heat and fallen with a shell in his arms, the shell had rolled and knocked down another man. Now there was a milling confusion clogging the alleyway.

The two guards moved forward, forcing their way into the press of black bodies, shouting hoarsely and clubbing with the rifle butts. It was the opportunity for which Sebastian had waited.

He stepped over the threshold of the magazine, and went to Walaka beside the cordite shelves.

"Send one of your men to take my place," he whispered, and reaching up into the folds of his cloak he brought out the cigar box.

With his back towards the door of the magazine, using the cloak as a screen to hide his movements, he slipped the catch of the box and opened the lid.

His hands trembled with haste and nervous agitation as he fumbled with the winder of the travelling-clock. It clicked, and he saw the second hand begin its endless circuit of the dial. Even over the shouts and scuffling in the alleyway, the muted ticking of its mechanism seemed offensively loud to Sebastian. Hastily he shut the lid and glanced guiltily over his shoulder at the doorway. Walaka stood there, and his face was sickly grey with the tension of imminent discovery, but he nodded to Sebastian, a signal t that the guards were still occupied without.

Reaching up to the nearest shelf, Sebastian wedged the cigar box between two of the paper-wrapped cylinders of cordite. Then he packed others over it, covering it AN completely.

He stood back and found with surprise that he was panting, his breathing whistling in his throat. He could feel the little drops of sweat prickling on his shaven head. In the white electric light they shone like glass beads on his velvety, black-stained skin.

"is it done?"Walaka croaked beside him.

"It is done," Sebastian croaked back at him, and suddenly he was overcome with a driving compulsion to be out of this steel room, out of this box-packed room with the ingredients of violent death and destruction; out of the stifling press of bodies that had surrounded him all day. A dreadful thought seized his imagination, suppose the artificer had erred in his assembly of the time charge, suppose that even now the battery was heating the wires of the detonator and bringing them to explosion point. He felt panic as he looked wildly at the tons of cordite and shell around him.

He w anted to run, to fight his way out and up into the open air.

He made the first move, and then froze.

The commotion in the alleyway had subsided miraculously, and now only one voice was raised. It came from just outside the doorway,

using the curt inflection of authority.

Sebastian had heard that voice repeatedly during that long day,

and he had come to dread it. It heralded danger.

"Get them back to work immediately," snapped Lieutenant Kyller as he stepped over the threshold into the magazine. He drew a gold watch from the pocket of his tunic and read the time. "It is five minutes after seven.

There is still almost half an hour before you knock off." He tucked the watch away, and swept the magazine with a gaze that missed no detail. He was a tall young man, immaculate in his tropical whites.

Behind him the two guards were hurriedly straightening their dishevelled uniforms and trying to look efficient and intelligent.

"Yes, sir," they said in unison.

For a moment Kyller's eyes rested on Sebastian. It was probably because Sebastian was the finest physical specimen among the bearers,

he stood taller than the rest of them as tall as Kyller himself. But

Sebastian felt his interest was deeper. He felt that Kyller was searching beneath the stain on his skin, that he was naked of disguise beneath those eyes. He felt that Kyller would remember him, had marked him down in his memory.

"That shelf." Kyller turned away from Sebastian and crossed the magazine. He went directly to the shelf on which Sebastian had placed his time charge, and he patted the cordite cylinders that Sebastian had handled. They were slightly awry. "Have it repacked immediately,"

said Kyller.

"Right away, sir," said the fat guard.

Again Kyller's eyes rested on Sebastian. It seemed that he was about to speak, then he changed his mind. He stooped through the doorway and disappeared.

Sebastian stood stony still, appalled by the order that Kyller had given. The fat guard grimaced sulkily.

"Christ, that one is a busy bastard." And he glared at the shelf."

He crossed to the cordite shelf "There's nothing wrong it and fiddled ineffectually. After a moment he asked the guard at the door, "Has

Kyller gone yet?"

"Yes. He's gone down the companionway into the sick,

bay.

"Good" grunted the fat one. "I'm damned if I'm going to waste half an hour repacking this whole batch." He hunched his shoulders, and screwed up his face with effort. There was a bagpipe squeal, and the guard relaxed and grinned.

"That one was for Lieutenant Kyller God bless him!" darkness was falling, and with it the temperature dropped a few degrees into the high eighties and created an illusion that the faint evening breeze was chilly. Sebastian hugged his cloak around his body, and shuffled along in the slow column of native labourers that dribbled over the side of the German battle cruiser into the waiting launches.

He was exhausted both in body and in mind from the strain of the day's labour in the magazine, so that he went down the catwalk and took his place in the whaler, moving in a state of stupor. When the boat shoved off and puttered up the channel towards the labour camp on the nearest island, Sebastian looked back at Blucher with the same dumb stare as the men who squatted beside him on the floorboards of the whaler. Mechanically he registered the fact that Commissioner

Fleischer's steam launch was tied up alongside the cruiser.

"Perhaps the fat swine will be aboard when the whole lot blows to hell," he thought wearily. "I can at least hope for that." He had no way of knowing who else Herman Fleischer had taken aboard the cruiser with him. Sebastian had been below decks toiling in the handling room of the magazine when the launch arrived from up-river, and Rosa

Oldsmith had been ushered up the catwalk by the Commissioner in person.

"Come along. We will take you to see the gallant captain of this fine ship." Fleischer puffed jovially as he mounted the steps behind her. "I am sure there are many interesting things that you can tell him." Bedraggled and exhausted with grief, pale with the horror of her father's death, and with cold hatred for the man who had engineered it, Rosa stumbled as she stepped from the catwalk on to the deck. Her hands were still bound in front of her so she could not check herself

She fell forward, letting herself fall uncaring, and with mild surprise felt hands hold and steady her.

She looked up at the man who had caught her, and in her confusion of mind she thought it was Sebastian. He was tall and dark and his hands were strong. Then she saw the peaked uniform cap with- its golden insignia, and she jerked away from him in revulsion.

"Ah! Lieutenant Kyller." Commissioner Fleischer spoke behind her.

"I have brought you a visitor a lovely lady."

"Who is she?" Kyller was appraising Rosa. Rosa could not understand a word that was spoken.

She stood in quiet acceptance, her whole body drooping.

"This..." answered" Fleischer proudly, is the most dangerous young lady in the whole of Africa. She is one of the leaders of the gang of

English bandits that raided the column bringing down the steel plate from Dares Salaam.

It was she who shot and killed your engineer. I captured her and her father this morning. Her father was the notorious O'Flynn."

"Where is he?" Kyller snapped.

"I hanged him."

"You hanged him? "demanded Kyller. "Without trial?"

"No trial was necessary."

"Without interrogating him?"

"I

brought in the woman for interrogation." Kyller was angry now, his voice crackled with it.

will leave it to Captain von Kleine to judge the wisdom of your actions," and he turned to Rosa; his eyes dropped to her hands, and,

with an exclamation of concern, he took her by the wrist.

"Commissioner Fleischer, how long has this woman been bound?"

Fleischer shrugged. "I could take no chances on her escaping."

"Look at this!" Kyller indicated Rosa's hands. They were Swollen, the fingers puffy and blue, sticking out stiffly, dead looking and useless.

"I could take no chances." Fleischer bridled at the implied criticism.

"Give me your knife," Kyller snapped at the petty officer in the barge of the gangway, and the man produced a large clasp knife. He opened it and handed it to the lieutenant.

Carefully Kyller ran the blade between Rosa's wrists and sawed at the rope. As her bonds dropped away Rosa cried out in pain, fresh blood flowing into her hands.

"You will be lucky if you have not done her permanent damage,"

Kyller muttered furiously as he massaged Rosa's bloated hands.

"She is a criminal. A dangerous criminal," growled Fleischer.

"She is a woman, and therefore deserving of your consideration.

Not of this barbarous treatment."

"She will hang."

"Her crimes she will answer for, in due course but until she has stood trial she will be treated as a woman." Rosa did not understand the harsh German argument that raged around her. She stood quietly and her eyes were fastened on the knife in Lieutenant Kyller's hand.

The hilt brushed her fingers as he worked to restore the circulation of her blood. The blade was long and silver bright, she had seen how keen was its edge by the way in which it had cut through the rope. As she stared at it, it seemed to her fevered fancy that there were two names engraved in the steel of the blade. The names of the two persons she had loved. The names of her father and her child.

With an effort she tore her gaze from the knife and looked at the man she hated. Fleischer had come close up to her, as though to take her away from Lieutenant Kyller's attention. His face was flushed with anger and the fold of flesh under his chin wobbled flabbily as he argued.

Rosa flexed her fingers. They were still numb and stiff, but she could feel the strength flowing back into them. She let her gaze drop down to Fleischer's belly.

It jutted out round. and full, soft-looking under the grey corduroy tunic, and again her fevered imagination formed a picture of the blade going into that belly. Slipping in silently, smoothly,

burying itself to the hilt and then drawing upwards to open the flesh like a pouch. The picture was so vivid that Rosa shuddered with the intense sensual pleasure of it.

Kyller was completely occupied with Fleischer. He felt the girl's fingers slide into the cupped palm of his right hand, but before he could pull away she had scooped the knife deftly from his grip. He lunged at her, but she pirouetted lightly away from him. Her knife hand dropped and then darted forward, driven by the full weight of her body at the bulging belly of Herman Fleischer.

Rosa thought that because he was fat he would be slow.

She expected him to be stunned by the unexpected attack, to stand and take the knife in his vitals.

Herman Fleischer was fully alert before she even started her thrust. He was fast as a striking mamba, and strong beyond credibility. He did not make the mistake of intercepting the knife with his bare hands. Instead he struck her right shoulder with a clenched fist the size of a carpenter's mallet. The force of the blow knocked her sideways, deflecting the blade from its target. Her arm from the shoulder downwards was paralysed, and the knife flew from her hand and slithered away across the deck.

Ja!"roared Fleischer triumphantly. Ja! So! Now you see how I

was right to tie the bitch. She is Vicious, dangerous." And he lifted the huge fist again to smash it into Rosa's face as she crouched,

hugging her hurt shoulder and sobbing with pain and disappointment.

"No!" Kyller stepped between them. "Leave her."

"She must be tied up like an animal she is dangerous," bellowed Fleischer, but

Kyller put a protective arm around Rosa's bowed shoulders.

"Petty Officer," he said. "Take this woman to the sickbay. Have

Surgeon Commander Buchholz see to her. Guard her carefully, but be gentle with her. Do you hear me?" And they took her away below.

"I must see Captain von Kleine," Fleischer demanded. "I must make a full report to him."

"Come,"said Kyller, "I will take you to him."

Sebastian lay on his side beside the smoky little fire with his cloak draped over him. Outside he heard the -night sounds of the swamp, the faint splash of a fish or a crocodile in the channel, the clink and boom of the tree frogs, the singing of insects, and the lap and sigh of wavelets on the mud bank below the hut.

The hut was one of twenty crude open sided shelters that housed the native labour force. The earth floor was thickly strewn with sleeping bodies. The sound of their breathing was a restless murmur,

broken by the cough and stir of dreamers.

Despite his fatigue, Sebastian was not sleeping, he could not relax from the state of tension in which he had been held all that day.

He thought of the little travelling-clock ticking away in its nest of high explosive, measuring out the minutes and the hours, and then his mind side-stepped and went to Rosa. The muscles of his arms tightened with longing. Tomorrow, he thought, tomorrow I will see her and we will go away from this stinking river. Up into the sweet air of the highlands. Again his mind jumped. Seven O'clock, seven o'clock tomorrow morning and it will be over. He remembered Lieutenant

Kyller's voice as he stood in the doorway of the magazine with the gold watch in his hand. The time is five minutes past seven..." he had said. So that Sebastian knew to within a few minutes when the time fuse would explode.

He must stop the porters going aboard Blitcher in the morning. He had impressed on old Walaka that they must refuse to turn out for the next day's shift. They must... "Manali! Manali!" his name was whispered close by in the gloom,

and Sebastian lifted himself on one elbow. In the flickering light from the fire there was a shadowy figure, crawling on hands and knees across the earthen floor, and searching the faces of the sleeping men.

"Manali, where are you?"

"Who is it?" Sebastian answered softly,

and the man jumped up and scurried to where he lay.

"It is I, Mohammed."

"Mohammed?" Sebastian was startled. "Why are you here?

You should be with Fini at the camp on the Abati." Fini is dead."

Mohammed's whisper was low with sorrow, so low that Sebastian thought he had misunderstood.

"What? What did you say?" Fini is dead. The Allemand came with the ropes. They hung him in the fever trees beside the Abati, and when he was dead they left him for the birds."

"What talk is this Sebastian demanded.

"it is true," mourned Mohammed. "I saw it, and when the

Allemand had gone, I cut the rope and brought him down.

I wrapped him in my own blanket and buried him in an ant-bear hole."

"Dead? Flynn dead? It isn't true!"

"It is true, Manah." In the red glow of the camp-fire Mohammed's face was old and raddled and gaunt. He licked his lips. "There is more, Manali. There is more to tell." But Sebastian was not listening. He was trying to force his mind to accept the reality of Flynn's death, but it balked.

It would not accept the picture of Flynn swinging at the rope's end, Flynn with the rope burns at his throat and his face swollen and em purpled Flynn wrapped in a dirty blanket and crammed into an ant-bear hole. Flynn dead?

No! Flynn was too big, too vital they could not kill Flynn.

Vanali, hear me." Sebastian shook his head, bemused, denying it.

It could not be true.

"Manali, the Allemand, they have taken Little Long Hair. They have bound her with ropes and taken her." Sebastian winced, and jerked away as though he had been struck open-handed across the face.

"No!" He tried to close his mind against the words.

"They caught her this morning early as she went to Fini.

They took her down-river in the small boat, and she is now on the great ship of the Allemand." Blitcher? Rosa is aboard the Blitcher?"

"Yes. She is there."

"No. Oh, God, no!" In five hours Blitcher would blow up. In five hours Rosa Would die. Sebastian swung his head and looked out into the night, he looked through the open side of the hut, down the channel to where Blitcher lay at her moorings half a mile away. There was a dim glow of light across the water from the hooded lanterns on Blitcher's main deck. But her form was indistinguishable against the dark mass of the mangroves. Between her and the island,

the channel was a smooth expanse of velvety blackness on which the reflections of the stars were scattered sequins of light.

"I must go to her," said Sebastian. "I cannot let her die there alone." His voice gathered strength and resolve. "I cannot let her die. I'll tell the Germans where to find the charge I'll tell them. " Then he faltered. "I can't. No, I can't. I'd be a traitor then, but, but..

He threw aside his cloak.

"Mohammed, how did you come here? Did you bring the canoe? Where is it?" Mohammed shook-his head. "No. I swam. My cousin brought me close to the island in the canoe, but he has gone away. We could not leave the canoe here, lest the Askari find it. They would have seen the canoe."

"There isn't a boat on the island nothing," muttered

Sebastian. The Germans were careful to guard against desertion. Each night the labour force was marooned on the island and the Askari patrolled the mud banks.

"Mohammed, hear me now." Sebastian reached across and laid his hand on the old man's shoulder. "You are my friend. I thank you that you have come to tell me these things."

"You are going to Little Long

Hair?"

"Yes."

"Go in peace, Manali."

"Take my place here, Mohammed.

When the guards count tomorrow morning, you will stand for me."

Sebastian tightened his grip on the bony shoulder. "Stay in peace,

Mohammed." His blackened body blending into the darkness, Sebastian crouched beneath the spread branches of a clump of pampa scrub, and the

Askari guard almost brushed against him as he passed. The Askari slouched along with his rifle slung so that the barrel stood up behind his shoulder. The constant patrolling had beaten a path around the circumference of the island, the guard followed it mechanically. Half asleep on his feet, completely unaware of Sebastian's presence. He stumbled in the darkness and swore sleepily, and moved on.

Sebastian crossed the path on his hands and knees, then stretched out on his belly into a reptilian slither as he reached the mud bank.

Had he tried to walk across it, the glutinous mud would have sucked so loudly around his feet that every guard within a hundred yards would have heard him.

The mud coated his chest and belly and legs with its coldly loathsome, clinging oiliness, and the reek of it filled his nostrils so he gagged. Then he was into the water. The water was blood warm, he felt the tug of the current and the bottom dropped away beneath him.

He swam on his side, careful that neither legs nor arms should break the surface. His head alone showed, like the head of a swimming otter,

and he felt the mud washing off his body.

He swam across the current, guided by the distant glimmer of Blucher's deck lights. He swam slowly, husbanding his strength, for he knew he would need all of it later.

His mind was filled with layers of awareness. The lowest layer was a lurking undirected terror of the dark water in which he swam, his dangling legs were vulnerable to the scaly predators which infested the

Rufiji river. The current Must be carrying his scent down to them.

Soon they would come hunting up to find him. But he kept up the easy stroke of arms and legs. It was a chance, one chance of the many He was taking and he tried to ignore it and grapple with the practical problems of his attempt. When he reached Blitcher, how was he to get aboard her? Her sides were fifty feet high, and the catwalks were the only means of access. These were both heavily guarded. It was a problem without solution, and yet he harried it.

Over this was a thick layer of hopeless sorrow. Sorrow for Flynn.

But the uppermost layer was thickest, strongest. Rosa, Rosa and

Rosa.

He found with surprise that he was saying it aloud.

"Rosa!" with each forward thrust of his body through the water.

"Rosa!" each time he drew breath.

"Rosa!" as his legs kicked out and Pushed him towards the

Blitcher.

He did not know what he would do if he reached her.

Perhaps there was some-half-fort ned idea of escaping with her, of fighting his way out of Blucher with his woman.

Getting her away before that moment when the ship would vanish in a holocaust of flame. He did not know, but he swam on quietly.

Then he was under Blitcher's side. The towering mass of steel blotted out the starry night sky, and he stopped swimming and hung in the warm water looking up at her.

There were small sounds. The hum of machinery within her, the faint clang' of metal struck against metal, the low guttural murmur of voices at her gangway, the thump of a rifle butt against the wooden deck, the soft wash of water around the hull -and then a closer,

clearer sound, a regular creak and tap, creak and tap.

He swam in towards the hull, searching for the source of this new sound. It came from near the bows, creak and tap.

The creak of rope, and the tap of wood against the steel hull. He saw it then, just above his head. He almost cried out with joy.

The cradles! The platforms still suspended above the water on which the welders and the painters had worked.

He reached up and gripped the wooden edge and drew himself on to the platform. He rested a few seconds and then began to climb the rope. Hand over hand, gripping the rope between the insides of his bare feet, he went up.

His head came level with the deck and he hung there, searching carefully. Fifty yards away he saw two seamen at the gangway. Neither was looking his way.

At intervals the hooded lanterns threw puddles of yellow light upon the deck, but there were concealing shadows beyond them. It was dark around the base of the forward gun-turrets, and there were piles of material, abandoned welding equipment, heaps of rope and canvas in the shadows which would hide him when he had crossed the deck.

Once more he checked the two guards at the gangway, their backs were turned to him.

Sebastian filled his lungs and steeled himself to act. Then with one fluid movement he drew himself up and rolled over the side. He landed lightly on his feet and darted across the exposed deck into the shadows. He ducked down behind a pile of canvas and rope netting, and struggled to control his breathing. He could feel his legs trembling violently under him, so he sat down on the planking and huddled against the protecting pile of canvas. River water trickled from his shaven pate over his forehead and into his eyes.

He wiped it away.

Now what?" He was aboard Blitcher, but what should he do next?

Where would they hold Rosa? Was there some sort of guard-room for prisoners? Would they put her in one of the officer's cabins? The sick-bay?

He knew roughly where the sick-bay was located. While he was working in the magazine he had heard the one German guard say, "He has gone down the companion-way to the sick-bay." It must be somewhere just below the forward magazine oh, God! If they had her there she would be almost at the centre of the explosion.

He came up on his knees, and peered over the pile of canvas. It was lighter now. Through the screen of netting, he could see the night sky had paled a little in the east. Dawn was not far off. The night had passed so swiftly, morning was on its way and there were but a few scant hours before the hands of the travelling-clock completed their journey, and made the electrical connection that would seal the Blitcher's fate, and the fate of all those aboard her.

He must move. He rose slowly and then froze. The guards at the gangway had come to attention. They stood stiffly with their rifles at the slope, and into the light stepped a tall, white-clad figure.

There was no mistaking him. It was the officer that Sebastian had last seen in the forward magazine. Kyller, they had called him,

Lieutenant Kyller.

Kyller acknowledged the salutes of the two guards, and he spoke with them a while. Their voices were low and indistinct. Kyller saluted again, and then left them. He came down the deck towards the bows; he walked briskly, and his face below the peak of his cap was in darkness.

Sebastian crouched down again, only his eyes lifted above the piled canvas. He watched the officer and he was afraid.

Kyller stopped in mid-stride. He half stooped to look at the deck at his feet, and then in the same movement, straightened with his right hand dropping to the bolstered pistol on his belt.

"Guard!" he bellowed. "Here! At the double!" On the holy stoned white planking, the wet footprints that Sebastian had left behind him glittered in the lantern light. Kyller stared in the direction that they led, coming directly towards Sebastian's hiding-place.

The boots of the two guards pounded heavily along the deck. They had unslung their rifles as they ran to join Kyller.

"Someone has come aboard here. Spread out and search..."

Kyller shouted at them, as he closed in on Sebastian.

Sebastian panicked. he jumped up and ran, trying to reach the corner of the gun-turret.

"There he is!" Kyller's voice. "Stop! Stop or I'll fire."

Sebastian ran. His legs driving powerfully, his elbows pumping, head down, bare feet slapping on the planking, he raced through shadow.

"Stop!" Kyller was balanced on the balls of his feet, legs braced,

right shoulder thrust forward and right arm outflung in the classic stance of the pistol marksman. The arm dropped slowly and then kicked up violently, as the shot spouted from the Luger in a bell of yellow flame. The bullet sponged against the plating of the turret and then glanced off in whining ricochet.

Sebastian felt the wind of the bullet pass his head and he jinked his run. The corner of the turret was very close, and he dodged towards it.

Then Kyller's next shot blurted loudly in the night, and simultaneously something struck Sebastian a heavy blow under his left shoulder blade. It threw him forward off balance and he reeled against the turret, his hands scrabbled at the smooth steel without finding purchase. His body flattened against the side of the turret, so that the blood from the exit hole that the bullet had torn in his breast sprayed on to the pale grey, painted turret.

His legs buckled and he slid down, slowly, still trying to find purchase with the hooked claws of his fingers, so that as his knees touched the deck he was in the attitude of devout prayer. Forehead pressed against the turret, kneeling, arms spread high and wide.

Then the arms sank down, and he slid sideways, collapsed onto the deck and rolled on to his back.

Kyller came and stood over him. The pistol hanging slackly in the hand at his side.

"Oh, my God," there was genuine regret in Kyller's voice.

"It's only one of the porters. Why did the fool run! I wouldn't have fired if he had stood." Sebastian wanted to ask him where Rosa was. He wanted to explain that Rosa was his wife, that he loved her,

and that he had come to find her.

He concentrated his vision on Kyller's face as it hung over him,

and he SUmmoned his school-boy German, marshalling the sentences in his mind.

But as he opened his mouth the blood welled up in his throat and choked him. He coughed, racking, and the blood bubbled through his lips in a pink froth.

"Lung shot!" said Kyller, and then to the guards as they came up,

"Get a stretcher. Hurry. We must take him down to the sick-bay." There were twelve bunks in Blitcher's sick-bay, six down each side of the narrow cabin. In eight of "them lay German seamen; five malaria cases and three men injured in the work of repairing her bows.

Rosa Oldsmith was in the bunk farthest from the door.

She lay behind a movable screen, and a guard sat outside the screen. He wore a pistol at his belt and was wholly absorbed in a year-old variety magazine, the cover of which depicted a buxom blonde woman in a black corset and high boots, with a horse whip in one hand.

The cabin was brightly lit and smelled of, antiseptic One of the malarial cases was in delirium, and he laughed and shouted. The medical orderly moved along the rows of bunks carrying a metal tray from which he administered the morning dosages of quinine. The time was 5 a.m.

Rosa had slept only intermittently during the night. She lay on top of the blankets and she wore a striped to welling dressing-gown over the blue flannel nightgown. The gown was many sizes too large and she had rolled back the cuffs of the sleeves. Her hair was loose on the pillows, and damp at the temples with sweat. Her face was pale and drawn, with bluish smudges of fatigue under her eyes, and her shoulder ached dully where Fleischer had struck her.

She was awake now. She lay staring up at the low roof of the cabin, playing over in her mind fragments from the happenings of the last twenty-four hours.

She recalled the interrogation with Captain von Kleine.

He had sat opposite her in his luxuriously furnished cabin, and his manner had been kindly, his voice gentle, pronouncing the English words with blurring of the consonants and a hardening of the vowel sounds. His English was good.

"When did you last eat? "he asked her.

"I am not hungry," she replied, making no attempt to conceal her hatred. Hating them all this handsome, gentleman, the tall lieutenant who stood beside him, and Herman Fleischer who sat across the cabin from her, with his knees spread apart to accommodate the full hang of his belly.

I will send for food." Von Kleine ignored her protest and rang for his steward. When the food came, she could not deny the demands of her body and she ate, trying to show no enjoyment. The sausage and pickles were delicious, for she had not eaten since the previous noon.

Courteously von Kleine turned his attention to a discussion with

Lieutenant Kyller until she had finished, but when the steward removed the empty tray he came back to her.

"Herr Fleischer tells me you are the daughter of Major O'Flynn,

the commander of the Portuguese irregulars operating in German territory?"

"I was until he was hanged, murdered! He was injured and helpless. They tied him to a stretcher..." Rosa flared at him,

tears starting in her eyes.

"Yes," von Kleine stopped her, "I know. I am not pleased.

That is now a matter between myself and Commissioner Fleischer. I

can only say that I am sorry. I offer you my condolence." He paused and glanced at Herman Fleischer.

Rosa could see by the angry blue of his eyes that he meant what he said.

"But now there are some questions I must ask you..

Rosa had planned er replies, for she knew what he would ask. She replied frankly and truthfully to anything that did not jeopardize

Sebastian's attempt to place the time fuse aboard Blucher.

What were she and Flynn doing when they were captured?

Keeping the Blucher under surveillance. Waiting to signal her departure to the blockading cruisers.

How did the British know that Blucher was in the Rufiji?

The steel plate, of course. Then confirmation by aerial reconnaissance.

Were they contemplating offensive action against Blitcher?

No, they would wait until she sailed.

What was the strength of the blockade squadron?" Two cruisers that she had seen, she did not know if there were other warships waiting over the horizon.

Von Kleine phrased his questions carefully, and listened attentively to her replies. For an hour the interrogation continued,

until Rosa was yawning openly, tied her voice was slurred with exhaustion. Von Kleine realized that there was nothing to be learned from her. What she had told him he already knew or had guessed.

"Thank you," he finished. "I am keeping you aboard my ship.

There will be danger here, for soon I will be going out to meet the

British warships. But I believe that it will be better for you than if

I handed you over to the German administration ashore." He hesitated a moment and glanced at Commissioner Fleischer. "In every nation there are evil men, fools and barbarians. Do not judge us all by one man."

With distaste at her own treachery, Rosa found that she auld not hate this man. A weary smile tugged her mouth and she answered him.

"You are kind."

"Lieutenant Kyller will see you to the hospital.

I am sorry I can offer you no better quarters, but this is a crowded vessel." When she had gone, von Kleine lit a cheroot and while he tasted its comforting fragrance, he allowed his eyes to rest on the portrait of the two golden women across the cabin. Then he sat up in his chair and his voice had lost its gentleness as he spoke to the man who lolled on the couch.

"Herr Fleischer, I find it difficult to express fully my extreme displeasure at your handling of this affair..

After a night of fitful sleep, Rosa lay on her hospital bunk behind the screen and she thought of her husband. If things had gone well Sebastian must by now have placed the time charge and escaped from

Blitcher. Perhaps he was already on his way to the rendezvous on the

Abati river. If this were so, then she would not see him again. It was her one regret.

She imagined him in his ludicrous disguise, and she smiled a little. Dear lovable Sebastian. Would he ever know what had happened to her? Would he know that she had died with those whom she hated?

She hoped that he would never kno, that he would never torture himself with the knowledge that he had placed the instrument of her death with his own hands.

I wish I could see him just once more to tell him that my death is unimportant beside the death of Herman Fleischer, beside the destruction of this German warship. I wish only that when the time comes, I could see it. I wish there were some way I could know the exact time of the explosion so I could tell Herman Fleischer a minute before, when it is too late for him to escape, and watch him. Perhaps he would blubber, perhaps he would scream with fear. I would like that. I would like that very much.

The strength of her hatred was such that she could no longer lie still. She sat up and tied the belt of her gown around her waist. She was filled with a restless itchy exhilaration. It would be today she felt sure sometime today she would slake this burning thirst for vengeance that had tormented her for so long.

She threw her legs over the side of the bunk and pulled open the screen. The guard dropped his magazine and started up from his chair,

his hand dropping to the pistol at his hip.

"I will not harm you..." Rosa smiled at him, not yetV She pointed to the door which led into the tiny shower cabinet and toilet. The guard relaxed and nodded acquiescence. He followed her as she crossed the cabin.

Rosa walked slowly between the bunks, looking at the sick men that lay in them.

"All of you," she thought happily. "All of you!" O

She slid the tongue of the lock across, and was alone in the bathroom. She undressed, and leaned across the washbasin to the small mirror set above it. She could see the reflection of her head and shoulders. There was a purple and red bruise spreading down from her neck and staining the white swell of her right breast. She touched it tenderly A with her fingertips.

"Herman Fleischer," she said the name gloatingly, "it will be today I promise you that. Today you will die." And then suddenly she was crying.

"I only wish yOU could burn as my baby burned I wish you could choke and swing on the rope as my father did." And the tears fell fat and slow, sliding down her cheeks to drop into the basin. She started to sob, dry conVUlsive gasps of grief and hatred. She turned blindly to the shower cabinet, and turned both taps full on so that the rush of the water Would cover the sound of her weeping. She did not want them to hear it.

Later, when she had bathed her face and body and combed her hair and dressed again, she unlocked the door and stepped through it. She stopped abruptly and through puffy reddened eyes tried to make sense of what was happening in the sick-bay.

It was crowded. The surgeon was there, two orderlies, four German seamen, and the young lieutenant. All of them hovered about the stretcher that was being manoeuvred between the bunks. There was a man on the stretcher, she could see his form under the single grey blanket that covered him, but Lieutenant Kyller's back obscured her view of the man's face. There was blood on the blanket,

and a brown smear of blood on the sleeve of Kyller's white tunic.

She moved along the bulkhead of the cabin and craned her head to see around Kyller, but at that moment one of the orderlies leaned across to swab the mouth of the man on the stretcher with a white cloth. The cloth obscured the wounded man's face. Bright frothy blood soaked through the material, and the sight of it nauseated Rosa. She averted her gaze and slipped away towards her own bunk at the end of the cabin. She reached the screen, and behind her somebody groaned.

It was a low delirious groan, but the sound of it stopped Rosa instantly. She felt as though something within her chest was swelling to stifle her.

Slowly, fearfully, she turned back.

They were lifting the man from the stretcher to lay him on an empty bunk. The head lolled sideways, and beneath its stain of bark juice, Rosa saw that dear, well loved face.

"Sebastian!" she cried and she ran to him, pushing past Kyller,

throwing herself on to the blanket-draped body, trying to get her arms around him to hug him.

"Sebastian! What have they done to you!" Sebastian! Sebastian!"

Rosaleaned across him and held her mouth to his ear.

"Sebastian!" She called his name quietly but urgently, then brushed his forehead with her lips. The skin was cold and damp.

He lay on his back with the bed clothes turned back to his waist.

His chest was swathed in bandages, and his breathing sawed and gurgled.

"Sebastian. It's Rosa. It's Rosa. Wake up, Sebastian.

Wake up, it's Rosa."

"Rosa?" At last her name had reached him. He whispered it painfully, wetly, and fresh blood stained his lips.

Rosa had been on the edge of despair. Two hours she had been sitting beside him. Since the surgeon had finished dressing the wound,

she had sat with him touching him, calling to him. This was the first sign of recognition he had given her.

"Yes! Yes! It's Rosa. Wake up, Sebastian." Her voice lifted with relief.

"Rosa?" His eyelashes trembled.

"Wake up." She pinched his cold cheek and he winced.

His eyelids fluttered open.

"Rosa?" on a shallow, sawing breath.

"Here, Sebastian. I'm here." His eyes rolled in their sockets,

searching, trying desperately to focus.

"Here," she said, leaning over him and taking his face between her hands. She looked into his eyes.

"Here, my darling, here."

"Rosa!" His lips convulsed into a dreadful parody of a smile.

"Sebastian, did you set the bomb?" His breathing changed,

hoarser, and his mouth twitched with the effort.

"Tell them he whispered.

"Tell them what?"

"Seven. Must stop it."

"Seven o'clock?"

"Don't want you-"

"Will it explode at seven o'clock?"

"You-" It was too much and he coughed.

"Seven o'clock? Is that it, Sebastian?"

"You will He squeezed his eyes closed, putting all his strength into the effort of speaking.

"Please. Don't die. Stop it."

"Did you set it for seven o'clock?" In her impatience she tugged his head towards her. "Tell me, for God's sake, tell me!" Seven o'clock. Tell them tell them." Still holding him, she looked at the clock set high up on the bulkhead of the sick-bay.

On the white dial, the ornate black hands stood at fifteen minutes before the hour.

"Don't die, please don't die, "mumbled Sebastian.

She hardly heard the pain-muted pleading. A fierce surge of triumph lifted her she knew the hour. The exact minute. Now she could send for Herman Fleischer, and have him with her.

Gently she laid Sebastian's head back on the pillow. On the table below the clock she had seen a pad and pencil among the bottles and jars, and trays of instruments. She went to it, and while the guard watched her suspiciously she scribbled a note.

"Captain, My husband is conscious. He has a message of vital importance for Commissioner Fleischer. He will speak to no one but

Commissioner Fleischer. The message could save your ship.

Rosa Oldsmith." She folded the sheet of paper and pushed it into the guard's hand.

"For the Captain. Captain."

"Kapitan," repeated the guard.

"Ja!" And he went to the door of the sick-bay. She saw him speak with the second guard outside the door, and then pass him the note.

Rosa sank down on the edge of Sebastian's bunk. She ran her hand tenderly over his shaven head. The new hair was stiff and bristly under her fingers.

"Wait for me. I'm coming with you, my darling. Wait for me But he had lapsed back into unconsciousness. Crooning softly, she gentled him. Smiling to herself, happily, she waited for the minute hand of the clock to creep up to the zenith of the dial.

Captain Arthur Joyce had personally supervised the placing of the scuttling charges. Perhaps, long ago, another man had felt the way he did hearing the command spoken from the burning bush,

and knowing he must obey.

The charges were small, but laid in twenty places against the bare plating, they would rip Renounce's belly out of her cleanly. The watertight bulkhead had been opened to let the water rush through her.

The magazines had all of them been flooded to minimize the danger of explosion. The furnaces had been damped down, and he had blown the pressure on his boilers retaining a head of steam, just sufficient to take Renounce in on her last run into the channel of the Rufiji.

The cruiser had been stripped of her crew. Twenty men left aboard her to handle the ship. The rest of them transshipped aboard Pegasus.

Joyce was going to attempt to force the log boom, take Renounce through the minefield, and sink her higher up, where the double mouth of the channel merged into a single thoroughfare.

If he succeeded he would effectively have blocked Blitcher, and sacrificed a single ship.

If he failed, if Renounce sank in the minefield before she reached the confluence of the two channels, then Armstrong would have to take

Pegasus in and scuttle her also.

On his bridge Joyce sat hunched in his canvas deck chair, looking out at the land; the green line of Africa which the morning sun lit in harsh golden brilliance.

Renounce was running parallel to the coast, five miles off shore.

Behind her Pegasus trailed like a mourner at a funeral.

"06:45 hours, sit." The officer of the watch saluted.

"Very well." Joyce roused himself. Until this moment he had hoped. Now the time had come and Renounce must die.

"Yeoman of Signals," he spoke quietly, "make this signal with

Pegasus number "Plan A Effective" This was the code that Renounce was to stand in for the channel. "Stand by to pick up survivors."

"Pegasus acknowledges, sir." Joyce was glad that Armstrong had not sent some inane message such as "Good luck'. A curt acknowledgement, that was as it should be.

"All right, Pilot,"he said, take us in, please." It was a beautiful morning and a flat sea. The captain of the escort destroyer wished it were not, he would have forfeited a year's seniority for a week of fog and rain.

As his ship tore down the line of transports to administer a rebuke to the steamer at the end of the column for not keeping proper station, he looked out at the western horizon. Visibility was perfect,

a German masthead would be able to pick out this convoy of fat sluggish transports at

", a distance of thirty miles.

Twelve ships, fifteen thousand men and Blitcher could be out. At any moment she could come hurtling up over the horizon, with those long nine-inch guns blazing. The thought gave him the creeps. He jumped up from his stool, and crossed to the port rail of his bridge to glower at the convoy.

Close alongside wallowed one of the transports. They were playing cricket on her afterdeck. As he watched, a sun-bronzed giant of a

South African clad only in short khaki pants swung the bat and clearly he heard the crack as it struck the ball. The ball soared up and dropped into the sea with a tiny splash.

"Oh, good shot, sir!" applauded the lieutenant who stood beside the captain.

"This is not the members" enclosure at Lords, Mr. Parkinson,"

snarled the destroyer captain. "If you have nothing to occupy you, I

can find duties for you." The lieutenant retired hurt, and the captain glanced along the line of troopships.

"Oh, no!" he groaned. Number Three was making smoke again. Ever since leaving Durban harbOUr Number Three had been giving periodic impersonations of Mount VesuViUS. It Would be a give-away to the lookout at Blucher's masthead.

He reached for his megaphone, ready to hurl the most scathing reprimand he Could muster at Number Three as he passed her.

"This is worse than being a teacher in a kindergarten.

They'll break me yet." And he lifted the megaphone to his lips as

Number Three came abreast.

The infantry-men that lined the troopship's rail cheered his eloquence to the echo.

"The fools. Let them cheer Blitcher when she comes," growled the captain and crowd the bridge to gaze apprehensively into the west where

Africa lay just below the horizon.

"Strength to Renounce and Pegasus." He made the wish fervently "God grant they hold Bliacher. If she gets through..

"It's no use, Bwana. They won't move," the sergeant of Askari reported to Ensign Proust.

"What is the trouble? "demanded Proust.

"They say there is a bad magic on the ship. They will not go to her today." Proust looked over the mass of black humanity. They squatted sullenly among the huts and palm trees, rank upon rank Of them, huddled in their cloaks, faces closed and secretive.

Drawn up on the mud bank of the island were the two motor launches, ready to ferry the bearers downstream to the day's labour aboard Blitcher. The German seamen tending the launches were watching with interest this charade of dumb rebellion, and Ensign Proust was very conscious of their attention.

Proust was at the age where he had an iron-clad faith in his own sagacity, the dignity of a patriarch, and pimples.

He was, in other words, nineteen years of age.

It was clear to him that these native tribesmen had embarked on their present course of action for no other reason than to embarrass

Ensign Proust. It was a direct and personal attack on his standing and authority.

He lifted his right hand to his mouth and began to feed thoughtfully on his fingernails. His rather prominent Adam's apple moved in sympathy with the working of his jaws. Suddenly he realized what he was doing. It was a habit he was trying to cure, and he jerked his hand away and linked it with its mate behind his back, in a faithful imitation of Captain Otto von Kleine, a man whom he held in high admiration. It had hurt him deeply when Lieutenant Kyller had greeted his request for permission to grow a beard like Captain von

Kleine's with ribald laughter.

Now he sank his bare chin on to his chest and began to pace solemnly up and down the small clearing above the mud bank. The sergeant of Askari waited respectfully with his men drawn up behind him for Ensign Proust to reach a decision.

He could send one of the launches back to Blitcher, to fetch

Commissioner Fleischer. After all, this was really the Herr

Commissioner's shoW. (Proust had taken to using odd Swahili words like an old Africa hand). Yet he realized that to call for Fleischer would be an admission that he was unable to handle the situation.

Commissioner Fleischer would jeer at him, Commissioner Fleischer had shown an increasing tendency to jeer at Ensign Proust.

"No," he thought, flushing so that the red spots on his skin were less noticeable, "I will not send for that fat peasant." He stopped pacing and addressed himself to the sergeant of Askari.

"Tell them..." he started, and his voice squeaked alarmingly.

He adjusted the timbre to a deep throaty rumble, "Tell them I take a very serious view of this matter." The sergeant saluted, did a showy about-face with much feet stamping, and passed on Ensign Proust's message in loud Swahili. From the dark ranks of bearers there was no reaction whatsoever, not so much as a raised eyebrow. The crews of the launches were more responsive. One of them laughed.

Ensign Proust's Adam's apple bobbed, and his ears chameleoned to the colour of a good burgundy.

"Tell them that it is mutiny!" The last word squeaked again, and the sergeant hesitated while he groped for the Swahili equivalent.

Finally he settled for: "Bwana Heron is very angry." Proust had been nicknamed for his pointed nose and long thin legs. The tribesmen bore up valiantly under this intelligence.

"Tell them i will take drastic steps." Now, thought the sergeant,

he is making" sense. He allowed himself literary licence in his translation.

i "Bwana Heron says that there are trees on this island for all of you and he has sufficient rope." A sigh blew through them, soft and restless as a small wind in a field of wheat. Heads turned slowly until they were all looking at Walaka.

Reluctantly Walaka stood up to reply. He realized that it was foolhardy to draw attention to himself when there was talk of ropes in the air, but the damage had already been done. The hundreds of eyes upon him had singled him out to the Allemand. Bwana Intambu always hanged the man that everyone looked at.

Walaka began to speak. His voice had the soothing quality of a rusty gate squeaking in the wind. It went on and on, as Walaka attempted a one-man filibust.

"What is he talking about? "demanded Ensign Proust.

"He is talking about leopards," the sergeant told him.

"What is he saying about them?"

"He says, among other things,

that they are the excrement of dead lepers,"

Proust looked stunned, he had expected Walaka's speech to have at least some bearing on the business in hand. He rallied gamely.

"Tell him that he is a wise old man, and that I look to him to lead the others to their duties." And the sergeant gazed upon Walaka sternly.

"Bwana Heron says that you, Walaka, are the son of a diseased porcupine and that you feed on offal with the vultures.

He says further that you he has chosen to lead the others in the dance of the rope." Walaka stopped talking. He sighed in resignation and -started down towards the waiting launch. Five hundred men stood up and followed him.

The two vessels chugged sedately down to Blitcher's moorings.

Standing in the bows of the leading launch with his hands on his hips,

Ensign Proust had the proud bearing of a Viking returning from a successful raid.

"I understand these people," he would tell Lieutenant Kyller.

"You must pick out their leader and appeal to his sense of duty." He took his watch from his breast pocket.

"Fifteen minutes to seven" he Murmured. "I'll have them aboard on the hour." He turned and smiled fondly at Walaka who squatted miserably beside the wheelhouse.

"Good man, that! I'll bring his conduct to Lieutenant Kyller's attention." Lieutenant Ernst Kyller shrugged out of his tunic and sat down on his bunk. He held the tunic in his lap and fingered the sleeve. The smear of blood had dried, and as he rubbed the material between thumb and forefinger, the blood crumbled and flaked.

"He should not have run. I had to shoot." He stood up and hung the tunic in the little cupboard at the head of his bunk. Then he took his watch from the pocket and sat down again to wind it.

"Fifteen minutes to seven." He noted the time mechanically, and laid the gold hunter on the flap table beside the bunk. Then he lay back and arranged the pillows under his head, he crossed his still-booted feet and regarded them dispassionately.

"He came aboard to try and rescue his wife. It was the natural thing to do. But that disguise the shaven head, and stained skin that must have been carefully thought out. It must have taken time to arrange." Kyller closed his eyes. He was tired. It had been a long and eventful watch. Yet there was something nagging him, a feeling that there was an important detail that he had overlooked, a detail of vital no, of deadly importance.

Within two minutes of the girl's recognition of the wounded man,

Kyller and the Surgeon commander had established that he was not a native, but a white man disguised as one.

Kyller's English was sketchy, but he had understood the girl's cries of love and concern and accusation.

"You've killed him also. You've killed them all. My baby, my father and now my husband. You murderers, you filthy murdering swines!" Kyller grimaced and pressed his knuckles into his aching eyes.

Yes, he had understood her.

When he had reported to Captain von Kleine, the captain had placed little importance on the incident.

"Is the man conscious?"

"No, sir."

"What does the surgeon say his chances are?"

"He will die. Probably before midday."

"You did the right thing, Kyller." Von Kleine touched his shoulder in a show of understanding. "Do not reproach yourself It was your duty."

"Thank you, sir."

"You are off watch now. Go to your cabin and rest that is an order. I want you fresh and alert by nightfall."

"Is it tonight then, sir?"

"Yes. Tonight we sail. The minefield has been cleared and

I have given the order for the boom to be destroyed.

The new moon sets at 11:47. We will sail at midnight." But Kyller could not rest. The girl's face, pale, smeared with her tears, haunted him. The strangled breathing of the dying man echoed in his ears, and that nagging doubt scratched against his nerves.

There was something he must remember. He flogged his tired brain,

and it balked.

Why was the man disguised? If he came as soon as he had heard that his wife was a prisoner he would not have had time to effect the disguise.

Where had the man been when Fleischer had captured his wife? He had not been there to protect her. Where had he been? It must have been somewhere near at hand.

Kyller rolled on to his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow. He must rest. He must sleep now for tonight they would go out to break through the blockading English warships.

A single ship against a squadron. Their chances of slipping through unchallenged were small. There would be a night action. His imagination was heightened by fatigue, and behind his closed eyelids he saw the English cruisers, lit by the flashes of their own broadsides as they closed with Blitcher. The enemy intent on vengeance. The enemy in overwhelming strength. The enemy strong and freshly provisioned,

their coal-bunkers glutted, their magazines crammed with shell, their crews uncontaminated by the fever miasma of the Rufiji.

Against them a single ship with her battle damage hastily patched,

half her men sick with malaria, burning green cordwood in her furnaces,

her fire-power hampered by the desperate shortage of shell.

He remembered the tiers of empty shell racks, the depleted cordite shelves in the forward magazine.

The magazine? That was it! The magazine! It was something about the magazine that he must remember.

That was the thing that had been nagging him. The magazine!

"Oh, my GodV he shouted in horror. In one abrupt movement he had leapt from his prone position on the bunk to stand in the centre of the cabin.

The skin on his bare upper arms prickled with gooseflesh.

That was where he had seen the Englishman before. He had been with the labour party in the forward magazine.

He would have been there for one reason only sabotage.

Kyller burst from his cabin, and raced, half dressed, along the corridor.

"I must get hold of Commander Lochtkamper. We'll need a dozen men strong men stokers. There are tons of explosive to move, we'll have to handle it all to find whatever the Englishman placed there.

Please, God, give us time. Give us time!" Captain Otto von Kleine bit the tip from the end of his cheroot, and removed a flake of black tobacco from the tip of his tongue with thumb and fore finger. His steward held a match for him and von Kleine lit the cheroot. At the wardroom table, the chairs of Lochtkamper, Kyller, Proust and one other were empty.

"Thank you, Schmidt," he said through the smoke. He pushed his chair back and stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles and laying his shoulders against the padded backrest. The breakfast had not been of gourmet standard; bread without butter, fish taken from the river and strong with the taste of the mud, washed down with black unsweetened coffee. Nevertheless, Herr Fleischer seemed to be enjoying it. He was beginning his third plateful.

Von Kleine found his appreciative snuffling distracting.

This would be the last period of relaxation that von Kleine could anticipate in the next many days. He wanted to savour it along with his cheroot, but the wardroom was not the place to do so. Apart from the gusto with which the Herr Commissioner was demolishing his breakfast, and the smell of fish there was a mood among his officers that was almost tangible. This was the last day and it was heavy with the prospect of what the night might bring. They were all of them edgy and tense. They ate in silence, keeping their attention on their plates, and it was obvious that most of them had slept badly. Von

Kleine decided to finish his cheroot alone in his cabin. He stood up.

"Excuse me please, gentlemen." A polite murmur, and von Kleine turned to leave.

"Yes, Schmidt. What is it?" His steward was standing deferentially in his path.

"For you, sir." Von Kleine clamped the cheroot between his teeth and took the note in both hands, screwing up his eyes against the blue spiral of tobacco smoke. He frowned.

This woman, and the man she claimed was her husband, worried him.

They were a drain on the attention which he should be devoting entirely to the problem of getting Blitcher ready for tonight. Now this message what could she mean "He could save your ship'? He felt a prickle of apprehension.

He swung around.

"Herr Commissioner, a moment of your time, please." Fleischer looked up from his food with a smear of grease on his chin.

Ja?"

"Come with me."

"I will just finish.

"Immediately, please." And to avert argument von Kleine stooped out of the wardroom, leaving Herman Fleischer in terrible indecision,

but he was a man for the occasion, he took the remaining piece of fish on his plate and put it in his mouth. It was a tight fit, but he still found space for the half cup of coffee as well. Then he scooped up a slice of bread and wiped his plate hurriedly. With the bread in his hand he lumbered after von Kleine.

He was still masticating as he entered the sickbay behind von

Kleine. He stopped in surprise.

The woman sat on one of the bunks. She had a cloth in her hand and with it she wiped the mouth of a black man who lay there. There was blood on the cloth. She looked up at Fleischer. Her expression was soft with compassion and sorrow, but it changed the moment she saw

Fleischer.

She stood up quickly.

"Oh, thank God, you've come," she cried with joy as though she were greeting a dear friend. Then incongruously she looked up at the clock.

Keeping warily away from her, Fleischer worked his way around to the opposite side of the bunk by which she stood.

He leaned over and studied the face of the dying man.

There was something very familiar about it. He chewed stolidly as he puzzled over it. It was the association with the woman that triggered his memory.

He made a choking sound, and bits of half chewed bread flew from his MOuth.

"Captain!" he shouted. "This is one of them one of the English bandits."

"kno," said von Kleine.

"Why wasn't I told? This man must be exeCuted immediately.

Even now it might be too late. justice will be cheated."

"Please, Herr

Commissioner. The woman has an important message for you."

"This is monstrous. I should have been told..."

"Be still," snapped von Kleine.

Then to Rosa, "You sent for me? What is it you have to tell us?"

With one hand Rosa was stroking Sebastian's head, but she was looking up at the clock.

"You must tell Herr Fleischer that the time is one minute before seven."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Tell him exactly as I say it."

"Is this a joke?"

"Tell him, quickly. There is very little time."

"She says the time is one minute to seven," von Klein(rattled out the translation.

Then in English, "I have told him."

"Tell him that at seven o'clock he will die."

"What is the meaning of that?"

"Tell him first. Tell him!"

insisted Rosa.

"She says that you will die at seven o'clock." And Fleischer interrupted his impatient gobbling over the prone form of Sebastian.

He stared at the woman for a moment, then he giggled uncertainly.

"Tell her I feel very well," he said, and laughed again, "better than this one here." He prodded Sebastian. "Ja, much better." And his laughter came full and strong, booming in the confined space of the sick-bay.

"Tell him my husband has placed a bomb in this ship, and it will explode at seven o'clock."

"Where?"demanded von Kleine.

"Tell him first."

"If this is true you are in danger also where is it?"

"Tell Fleischer what I said."

"There is a bomb in the ship."

And Fleischer stopped laughing.

"She is lying, "he spluttered. "English Lies."

"Where is the bomb? "von Kleine had grasped Rosa's arm.

"It is too late, Rosa smiled complacently. "Look at the clock."

"Where is it?" Von Kleine shook her wildly in his agitation.

"In the magazine. The forward magazine."

"In the Magazine! Sweet merciful Jesus!" von Kleine swore in German, and turned for the door.

"The magazine?" shouted Fleischer and started after him.

"It is impossible it can't be." But he was running, wildly,

desperately, and behind him he heard Rosa Oldsmith's triumphant laughter.

"You are dead. Like my baby dead, like my father. It is too late to run, much too late!" Von Kleine went up the companion-way steps three at a time. He came out into the alleyway that led to the magazine, and stopped abruptly.

The alleyway was almost blocked by a mountain of cordite charges thrown haphazard from the magazine by a knot of frantically busy' stokers

"What are you doing? "he shouted.

"Lieutenant Kyller is looking for a bomb."

"Has he found it?" von

Kleine demanded as he brushed past them.

"Not yet, sir." Von Kleine paused again in the entrance to the magazine. It was a shambles. Led by Kyller, men were tearing at the stacks of cordite, sweeping them from the shelves, ransacking the magazine.

Von Kleine jumped forward to help.

"Why didn't you send for me?" he asked as he reached up to the racks above his head.

"No time, sir, "grunted Kyller beside him.

"How did you know about the bomb?"

"It's a guess I could be wrong, Sir."

"You're right! The woman told us. It's set for seven o'clock."

"Help us, God! Help us!" pleaded Kyller, and hurled himself at the next shelf.

"It could be anywhere anywhere!" Captain von Kleine worked like a stevedore, knee-deep in spilled cylinders of cordite.

"We should clear the ship. Get the men off." Kyller attacked the next rack.

"No time. We've got to find it." Then in the uproar there was a small sound, a muffled tinny buzz. The alarm bell of a travelling-clock.

"There!" shouted Kyller. "That's id" And he dived across the magazine at the same moment as von Kleine did. They collided and fell,

but Kyller was up instantly, dragging himself on to his feet with hands clawing at the orderly rack of cordite cylinders.

The buzz of the alarm clock seemed to roar in his ears.

He reached out and his hands fell on the smoothly paper-wrapped parcels of death, and at that instant the two copper terminals within the leather case of the clock which had been creeping infinitesimally slowly towards each other for the past twelve hours, made contact.

Electricity stored in the dry cell battery flowed through the circuit, reached the hair-thin filament in the detonator cap, and heated it white-hot. The detonator fired, transferring its energy into the sticks of gelignite that were packed into the cigar box. The wave of explosion leapt from molecule to molecule with the speed of light so that the entire contents of Blitcher's magazine were consumed in one hundredth part of a second. With it were consumed Lieutenant Kyller and Captain von Kleine and the men about them.

In the centre of that fiery holocaust they burned to vapour.

The blast swept through Blucher. Downwards through two decks with a force that blew the belly out of her as easily as popping a. paper bag, down through ten fathoms of water to strike the bottom of the river and the shock wave bounced up to raise fifteen-foot "waves along the surface.

It blew sideways through Blitcher's watertight bulkheads, crumpling and tearing them like silver paper.

It caught Rosa Oldsmith as she lay across Sebastian's chest,

hugging him. She did not even hear it come.

It caught Herman Fleischer just as he reached the deck, and shredded him to nothingness.

It swept through the engine room and burst the great boilers,

releasing millions of cubic feet of scalding steam to race through the ship.

It blew upwards through the deck, lifting the forward gun-turret off its seating, tossing the hundreds of tons of steel high in a cloud of steam and smoke and debris.

It killed every single human being aboard. It did more than merely kill them, it reduced them to gas and minute particles of flesh or bone. Then still unsatisfied, its fiery unabated, it blew outwards from Blitcher's shattered hulk, a mighty wind that tore the branches from the mangrove forest and stripped it of leaves.

It lifted a column of smoke and flame writhing and twisting into the bright morning sky above the Rufiji delta, and the waves swept out across the river as though from the eye of a hurricane.

They overwhelmed the two launches that were approaching Blitcher,

pouring over them and capsizing them, swirling them over and over and spilling their human cargo into the frightened frothing water.

And the shock waves rolled on across the delta to burst thunderously against the far hills, or to dissipate out on the vastness of the Indian Ocean.

They passed over the British cruiser Renounce as she entered the channel between the mangroves. They rolled overhead like giant cannon-balls across the roof of the sky.

Captain Arthur Joyce leapt to the rail of his bridge, and he saw the column of agonized smoke rise from the swamps ahead of him. A

grotesque living thing, unbelievable in its size, black and silver and shot through with flame.

"They've done it!" shouted Arthur Joyce. "By Jove, they've done it!" He was shaking; his whole body juddering, his face white as ice,

and his eyes which he could not drag from that spinning column of destruction that rose into the sky, filled slowly with tears. He let them overflow his eyelids and run unashamedly down his cheeks.

Two old men walked into a grove of fever trees that stood on the south bank of the Abati river. They stopped beside a pile of gargantuan bones from which the scavengers had picked the flesh,

leaving them scattered and white.

"The tusks are gone, "said Walaka.

"Yes," agreed Mohammed, "the Askari came back and stole them."

Together they walked on through the fever trees and then they stopped again. There was a low mound of earth at the edge of the grove.

Already it had settled and new grass was growing upon it.

"He was a man, "said Walaka.

"Leave me, my cousin. I will stay here a while."

"Stay in peace,

then," said Walaka, and settled the string of his blanket roll more comfortably over his shoulder before he walked on.

Mohammed squatted down beside the grave. He sat there unmoving all that day. Then in the evening Mohammed stood up and walked away towards the south.

The End