The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 116

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their original position and stood staring up at the sky.

Nicholas called softly into the microphone. "Big Dolly.

Smoke is up. Do you have it visual?"

"Affirmative. You are visual. For what you are about to receive may you

be truly thankful." Jannie's South African accent was unmistakable as he

uttered the cheerful blasphemy.

They watched the aircraft grow in size until its wings seemed to fill

half the sky, and then its profile altered as the great wing flaps

dropped and the ramp below its belly drooped open. Big Dolly slowed her

flight so dramatically that she seemed to hang suspended on an invisible

thread from the high African sun. Slowly she came around, banking

steeply as Jannie tined her up on the smoke flares, dropping lower and

still lower, headed directly at where they stood.

With a savage roar that made all three of them duck, she passed so low

over their heads that it seemed she would wipe them off the crest.

Nicholas had a glimpse of Jannie upwarliov peering down at him from the

cockpit, a fat smile on his face and one hand raised in a laconic wave,

and then he was past.

Nicholas straightened up and watched Big Dolly sweep majestica Ily down

the centre of the valley. The first pallet dropped out of her and

plunged earthwards, until at the last moment its parachutes burst open

like a bride's bouuet. The fall of the heavy container was arrested

abruptly.

 It. dangled and swung, and seconds later struck the floor of the valley

in a cloud of yellow dust and with a crash they could hear up on the

ridge. Then two more loads dropped from her, and they too hung for a

moment on their chutes before they slammed in.

Big Dolly's engines howled under full throttle and her nose lifted as

she bored for height while she passed over the crimson smoke clouds, and

then climbed out of the deadly trap of the valley. She came round in

another wide turn and lined up for the second run. Once again the

pallets dropped out of her as she roared over the quartz markers and

then climbed out over the end wall of the valley, skimming the rocky

spikes that would have clawed her down.

Six times Jannie repeated the dangerous manoeuvre, and each time he

dropped three of the heavy rectangular loads. They lay strewn down the

length of the valley, shrouded by the tumbled white silk of their own

parachutes.

As Jannie climbed away from the last pass, his voice echoed in

Nicholas's earphones. "Don't go away, Pharaoh!

I will be back." Then Big Dolly lifted her belly ramp like an old lady

hoisting her knickers and headed away westwards.

Nicholas and Mek ran down into the valley, where the monks were already

jabbering and laughing. around the pallets. Quickly the two of them took

control, sorting the men into gangs and directing them as they broke

down the loads and carried them away.

Nicholas and Sapper had planned that the pallets should be dropped in

the order that their contents would be needed. The first pallet

contained canned and dried food, all their personal effects and camping

equipment, along with those other little creature comforts that Nicholas

had allowed, including mosquito nets and a case of malt whisky. He was

relieved to see that there was no leakage from the precious case: not

one of the bottles had been broken in the drop.

Sapper took charge of the building material and heavy equipment. With

Tessay relaying his orders, it was dragged and manhandled away to the

ancient quarry where it would be packed and stored until needed on site.

Darkness fell with More than half the pallets still not unpacked, lying

where they had fallen. Mek placed an armed guard over them, and they all

traipsed wearily back up the valley to the camp.

That night, with a dram of whisky and a decent meal warming his belly, a

mosquito net over his head and a thick foam mattress under him, Nicholas

drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face. They were off to a good

start.

The chanting of the monks at their matins woke him, "We won't need an

alarm clock here," he groaned, and staggered down to the river to wash

and shave.

As the sun gilded the battlements of the escarpment, he and Mek were

already at their post on the heights, searching the western sky. The

plan had been for Jannie to spend the night at Roseires, while Mek's men

assisted him with the loading of the cargo they had stored-there on

their first flight out from Malta. This was one of the vulnerable stages

of the operation. Although Mek had assured them that there was little

military presence in the area at the moment, it needed only a stray

Sudanese government patrol to stumble on Big, Dolly while she was on the

ground to plunge them all into disaster. So it was with a leap of the

heart that they heard the familiar drone of the turbo-props

reverberating off the cliffs.

Big Dolly lined up again for her first pass down the valley, and as she

flew over the quartz crosses the huge yellow front'end loader tumbled

out of her hold. Instinctively Nicholas held his breath as he watched it

come the parachute hurtling down and then jerk up short on shrouds. it

swayed wildly all over the sky, yoyoing on the nylon ropes, and the

monks howled with amazement and excitement as they watched it drop in.

it struck in a cloud of dust.

Sapper was standing next to Nicholas, groaning and covering his eyes so

that he did not have to watch the "Shit!' he said in a hollow cloud of

dust rising into the air.

voice.

"Is that a command, or merely a request?" Nicholas asked, but he wasn't

really amused.

As the last pallet dropped, and the aircraft climbed away under full

power, Nicholas called Jannie on the radio.

"Many thanks, Big Dolly. Safe flight home."

"Inshallahl If God wills!'Jannie called back.

"I will call you when I need a lift back."

"I'll be waiting." Big Dolly trundled away. "Break a leg!'

"Well now." Nicholas slapped Sapper's back. "Let's go down and see if

you still have a front'ender."

The battered yellow machine lay on its side with oil pouring out of her,

like blood from a heart-shot dinosaur.

"You can push off. just leave me a dozen of these black guys to help

me," Sapper told them as sorrowfully as if he was standing at the

graveside of his beloved, Sapper did not return to camp for dinner, so

Tessay sent a bowl of wat and some injera bread down to him to

1i eat while he worked. Nicholas considered going down to offer his help

with repairing the damaged tractor, but thought better of it. From

bitter experience he knew that at certain times Sapper wanted to be left

alone, and that this was one of those times.

in the small dark hours of the morning the camp was lit up by the blaze

of headlights and the hills reverberated to the roar of a diesel engine.

With, even his bald head covered with grease and dust, hollow-eyed but

triumphant, Sapper drove the yellow tractor into the camp and shouted at

them from the high driver's seat.

okay, knaves and nymphs! Drop your cocks and grab your socks. Let's go

build a dam."

t took them another two full days to gather in all the pallets that lay

strewn down the valley and to carry the stores into the ancient quarry.

There they stacked them carefully in accordance with the manifest that

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