Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 21

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Enteric. Lothar said the dread word. It's through the camp already. Hendrick froze. Lothar had seen him stand down the charge of a wounded bull elephant, but he was afraid now.

Lothar could see it in the way he held his great black head and smell it on him, a strange odour like that of one of the copper-hooded desert cobras when aroused.

Come on, Manfred. We are getting out. Where are we going, Pa? Manfred remained squatting.

Away from here, away from the town and this plague. What about Sarah? Manfred ducked his head on to his shoulders, a stubborn gesture which Lothar recognized.

She is nothing to us. There is nothing we can do. She's going to die, like her ma, and the little kids. Manfred looked up at his father. She's going to die, isn't she? Get up on your feet, Lothar snarled at him. His guilt made him fierce. We are going. He made an authoritative gesture and Hendrick reached down and hauled Manfred to his feet.

Come, Manie, listen to your Pa. He followed Lothar, dragging the boy by his arm.

They crossed the railway embankment and Manfred stopped pulling back. Hendrick released him, and he followed obediently. Within the hour they reached the main road, a dusty silver river in the moonlight running down the pass through the hills, and Lothar halted.

Are we going for the horses now? Hendrick asked.

Yes. Lothar nodded. That's the next step. But his head turned back in the direction they had come and they were all silent, looking back with him.

I couldn't take the chance, Lothar explained. I couldn't let Manfred stay near them. Neither of them answered. We have to get on with our preparations, the horses, we have to get the horses, His voice trailed off.

Suddenly Lothar snatched the pack from Hendrick's shoulder and threw it to the ground. He ripped it open angrily and snatched out the small canvas roll in which he kept his surgical instruments and store of medicines.

Take Manie, he ordered Hendrick. Wait for me in the gorge of the Gamas river, at the same place we camped on the march from Usakos. You remember it? Hendrick nodded. How long will it be before you come? As long as it takes them to die, said Lothar. He stood up and looked at Manfred.

Do what Hendrick tells you, he ordered.

Can't I come with you, Pa? Lothar did not bother to reply. He turned and strode back amongst the moonlit thorn trees and they watched him until he disappeared. Then Hendrick dropped to his knees and began re-rolling the pack.

Sarah squatted beside the fire, her skirts pulled up around her skinny brown thighs, slitting her eyes against the smoke as she waited for the soot-blackened billy to boil.

She looked up and saw Lothar standing at the edge of the firelight. She stared at him, and then slowly her pale delicate features seemed to crumple and the tears streamed down her cheeks, glistening in the light of the flames.

I thought you weren't coming back, she whispered. I thought you had gone. Lothar shook his head abruptly, still so angry with his own weakness that he could not trust himself to speak.

Instead he squatted across the fire from her and spread the canvas roll. Its contents were pitifully inadequate. He could draw a rotten tooth, lance a boil or a snake-bite, or set a broken limb, but to treat runaway enteric there was almost nothing. He measured a spoonful of a black patent medicine, Chamberlain's Famous Diarrhoea Remedy, into the tin mug and filled it with hot water from the billy.

Help me, he ordered Sarah and between them they lifted the youngest child into a sitting position. She was without weight and he could feel every bone in her tiny body, like that of a fledgling taken from the nest. It was hopeless.

She'll be dead by morning he thought, and held the mug to her lips. She did not last that long; she slipped away a few hours before dawn. The moment of death was ill-defined, and Lothar was not certain it was over until he felt for the child's pulse at the carotid and felt the chill of eternity in her wasted flesh.

The little boy lasted until noon and died with as little fuss as his sister. Lothar wrapped them in the same grey, soiled blanket and carried them in his arms to the communal grave that had been already dug at the edge of the camp.

They made a small lonely little package on the sandy floor of the square excavation, at the end of the row of larger bodies.

Sarah's mother fought for her life.

God knows why she should want to go on living, Lothar thought, there isn't much in it for her. But she moaned and rolled her head and cried out in the delirium of fever. Lothar began to hate her for the stubborn struggle to survive that kept him beside her foul mattress, forced to share in her degradation, to touch her hot fever-wracked skin and dribble liquid into her toothless mouth.

At dusk he thought she had won. Her skin cooled and she was quieter. She reached out feebly for Sarah's hand and tried to speak, staring up at her face as though she recognized her, the words catching and cawing in the back of her throat and thick yellow mucus bubbling in the corners of her lips.

The effort was too much. She closed her eyes and seemed to sleep.

Sarah wiped her lips and held on to the thin bony hand with the blue veins swelling under the thin skin.

An hour later the woman sat up suddenly, and said clearly: Sarah, where are you, child? then fell back and fought for a long strangling breath. The breath ended in the middle and her bony chest subsided gradually, and the flesh seemed to droop from her face like warm candlewax.

This time Sarah walked beside him as Lothar carried the woman to the grave site. He laid her at the end of the row of corpses. Then they walked back to the hut.

Sarah stood and watched Lothar roll the canvas pack, and her small white face was desolate. He went half a dozen paces and then turned back. She was quivering like a rejected puppy, but she had not moved.

All right, he sighed with resignation. Come on, then. And she scampered to his side.

I won't be any trouble, she gabbled, almost hysterical with relief. I'll help you. I can cook and sew and wash. I won't be any trouble. What are you going to do with her? Hendrick asked. She can't stay with us. We could never do what we have to do with a child of her age. I could not leave her there, Lothar defended himself, in that death camp. It would have been better for us. Hendrick shrugged. But what do we do now? They had left the camp in the bottom of the gorge and climbed to the top of the rocky wall. The children were far below on the sandbank at the edge of the only stagnant green pool in the gorge that still held water.

They squatted side by side, Manfred with his right hand extended as he held the handline. They saw him lean back and strike, then heave the line in hand over hand. Sarah jumped up and her excited shrieks carried up to where they sat. They watched Manfred swing the kicking slippery black catfish out of the green water. It squirmed on the sand, glistening with wetness.

I will decide what to do with her, Lothar assured him, but Hendrick interrupted.

It better be soon. Every day we waste the water-holes in the north are drying out, and we still don't even have the horses. Lothar stuffed his clay pipe with fresh shag and thought about it. Hendrick was right; the girl complicated everything. He had to get rid of her somehow. Suddenly he looked up from the pipe and smiled.

My cousin, he said, and Hendrick was puzzled.

I did not know you had a cousin. Most of them perished in the camps, but Trudi survived. Where is she, this beloved cousin of yours? She lives on our road to the north. We'll waste no time in dumping the brat with her. I don't want to go, Sarah whispered miserably. I don't know your aunt. I want to stay here with you. 'Hush, Manfred cautioned her. You'll wake Pa and Henny. He pressed closer to her and touched her lips to quieten her. The fire had died down and the moon had set.

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