A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 76

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Sidetracked for the moment, Sean frowned at him in Puzzlement. "Who? Who are you talking about?"

"The leader of the Renamo," Matatu told him happily. "I told you yesterday I knew his footprints. Now I remember who he is."

"Who is he, then?" Sean asked suspiciously, ready to reject the information.

"Do you remember when we jumped from the bideki to attack the training camp at the fork of the rivers?" Matatu twinkled at him and Sean nodded guardedly. "Do you remember how we killed them in the river-bed?" Matatu chuckled with the delightful memory of it. "Do you remember the one we caught while he was trying to burn the books? The one who refused to march, and you blew his ear in?" Now he giggled at that fine joke. "The blood came out of his earhole4and he squeaked like a virgin."

"Comrade China?"

"China." Matatu had a little difficulty with the pronunciation.

"Yes, that is the one."

"No!" Sean shook his head. "It isn't China. That's not possible!"

Now Matatu had to cover his mouth to muffle his delighted squeals of laughter. He loved it when he was able to confound and astound his master. There was no better joke than that.

"China!" He spluttered with mirth and stuck his forefinger in his own ear. "Pow!" he said, and it was so funny he almost choked.

"Comrade China."

Sean stared at him unseeingly while he adjusted his mind to this extraordinary intelligence. All his instincts were to reject it out of hand, but Matatu didn't make mistakes of that nature.

"Comrade China!" Sean breathed softly. "That changes the odds a little."

He cast his mind back to that distant day. The man had made such an impression on him that even from the crowded and confused events of that bloody little war he retrieved a clear image of Comrade China. He remembered his fine Nilotic head and the dark intelligent eyes, but his physical features were hazy compared to Sean's memory of the sense of confidence and purpose the man exuded. He had been a dangerous man then, and Sean expected that by now he would be even more experienced and formidable.

Sea shook his head. At one time his nickname in the Scouts had been "Lucky Courtney"; it looked as though he had used up his ration of that commodity. He couldn't have chosen anybody he would have wanted less to command the column of Renamo than Comrade China.

Matatu had almost exhausted his mirth and was now battling with the hiccoughs that followed, clutching at his naked belly and throat to hold them down, while occasional spasms of laughter interspersed the loud hiccoughs.

"I'm sending you back to Chiwewe," Sean told him harshly, and the laughter and hiccoughs were instantly extinguished. Matatu stared at him in disbelief and utter despair. Sean could not face those eyes and their tragic accusation.

He turned to Pumula and brusquely called him across to where he lay. "This note is for the chef at camp. Tell him to radio the message to Miss Reema in Harare. Matatu will guide you back.

Don't stop to pick your nose on the way, do you understand me?"

"Mwnbo. " Pumula was an old Scout. He would obey without argument or question.

"All right, go," Sean ordered. "Go now." And Pumula held out his right hand. They shook hands the African way, gripping palms and then thumbs and then palms again. Pumula crawled down off the ridge and, once he was clear, jumped to his feet and trotted away. He did not look back.

At last Sean forced himself to look at Matatu, who was crouchk ing low to the ground, trying to make his small frame smaller still to escape Sean's notice.

"Go!" Sean ordered brusquely. "Show Pumula the way back to Chiwewe Matatu hung his head and shivered like a whipped puppy.

ISO

NINE,

"Get the hell out of here!" Sean growled at him. "Before I kick your black butt!"

Matatu lifted his head. His eyes were tragic, his expression abject. Sean wanted to pick him up and hug him.

"Get out of here, you silly little bugger!" Sean made a face of terrifying ferocity. Matatu crept away a few paces and then paused and looked back imploringly.

"Go!" Sean lifted his right hand threateningly. At last the little man accepted the inevitable and slunk away down the slope. Just before he disappeared into the coarse scrub at the foot of the slope, he paused and looked back one more time, seeking the faintest sign of encouragement or weakness. He was the epitome of dejection.

Deliberately Sean turned his back on him and raised the binoculars to study the terrain ahead, but after a few seconds the image bluffed. He blinked his eyes to clear them and despite himself glanced quickly over his shoulder. Matatu had vanished. It was a strange feeling not to have him there. After a few minutes Sean lifted the binoculars again and resumed his study of the escarpment fine, pushing Matatu out of his mind.

On either side of the mouth of the long valley, the red rock cliffs stretched away unbroken as far as he could see. They were not particularly y high; at the lowest points they were only a few hundred feet, but they were vertical and some stretches were even overhanging where softer strata of rock had been eroded from under the harder superimposed upper layers, and formed a shallow horizontal cave.

The entrance of the valley was as inviting as the mouth of a carnivorous plant to an insect, and the cliffs were forbidding and inaccessible, but Sean concentrated upon them. He swept them with the binoculars in both directions as far as he co d Of course, it might be necessary to move some miles along the cliff to find a route that was Scalable, but that would burn up precious time. He kept swinging the binoculars back to the same point.

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