The Radioactive Camel Affair - Leslie Peter - Страница 21
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Towards the end of the afternoon, he found himself emerging from an area of dense forest into a small glade floored with plants which had bright violet flowers. The trail vanished among the trees on the far side of the open space—but across the middle, a chasm barred the way. Illya pulled up and walked to the edge of the fissure. Some gigantic upheaval eons ago had split the earth open as though it had been cleft with a vast axe. On either side, the trees closed in and lined the gorge as far as he could see. Far below, a thread of water glistened in the shadows—and among the smooth rocks he could make out the splintered remnants of what had been a plank bridge. The sheer faces of the cleft overhung at the top and the gap was no more than four or five feet where the bridge had been; a child of ten could have leaped it with ease. But for the Landrover it was an impassable barrier.
For minutes, the Russian pondered. To go back was hopeless: he had no means of knowing how far around he would have to go. And in any case, no alternative route was marked on the map. Equally, without the right kind of tools and tackle it would be impossible to fell trees and fashion any kind of makeshift bridge. There was no choice: he must abandon the vehicle and continue on foot.
Once more he consulted the map. So far as he could make out from the undetailed markings, he was still more than thirty miles short of Halakaz. He would have to sleep somewhere in the jungle and walk there tomorrow. It was an awkward predicament: it could be dangerous—but on the other hand, it could have been much worse. Perhaps he would be able to hire a mule or a camel in the town.
He backed the Landrover into the trees and bumped a hundred yards off the track among the undergrowth. It was quite invisible from the trail and there was just a chance it might remain undetected. Making a compact roll of his sleeping bag, a couple of sweaters and the remainder of his provisions, he slung field glasses, Hasselblad and the gun-camera over his shoulder and returned to the chasm. After pitching the roll across; he retreated a few paces, ran up and jumped lightly over the gap.
The trail twisted and turned among the giant trees. The undergrowth was now positively luxuriant and long strands of creeper hung down from branches far above his head. It was airless and somber, the atmosphere moist and humming with invisible insects, but from what he could see of the sky through the treetops he estimated that there was still an hour or more of daylight. He must press on as far as he could.
For half an hour he trudged through the forest—and then, to his astonishment, he heard voices. Cautiously rounding a thicket, he found himself face to face with a woman in riding breeches carrying an elephant gun.
At first he was irresistibly reminded of General Mazzari, for her accouterments gleamed from the tips of her knee-length leather boots to the lenses of the sunglasses masking her eyes. But there the resemblance ended. Although deeply bronzed, she was a white woman, small-waisted, about thirty-five years old, and wearing, incongruously, a Sam Browne belt. She wore lipstick and her ash-blonde hair was absurdly gathered on the nape of her neck in a black velvet bow.
“And from where have you suddenly sprung, young man?” she inquired in English. Her voice was deep, husky, overlaid with a trace of accent—Swiss, perhaps?—that he could not quite place.
Illya dropped the roll at his feet with a sigh of relief and explained about the chasm.
“Yes, the Arabs destroyed the bridge six months ago,” she said. “I suppose they thought it might hinder the Nya Nyerere. But there are dozens of places further down where they can cross. However, that doesn’t help you: you had better stay with us tonight and tell me all about it while we eat.”
She led the way back to a clearing where a fair-sized encampment was laid out. Two orderly lines of flysheeted tents faced a charcoal fire from which drifted an agreeable smell of cooking. At one side, bales and crates of stores were neatly stacked. Among them, Illya saw, was a theodolite on a tripod. There seemed to be about a dozen Negro bearers in the camp, and at least three white men.
The woman’s name, she told him, was Rosa Harsch. She was a geomorphologist, surveying and mapping the great triangle of uncharted forest which lay between Halakaz, Wau and Wadi Elmira on behalf of a development corporation—which she did not name. “There’s thousands of square miles of jungle here practically unexplored,” she said. “Underneath, most of it’s limestone—but the strata are still with unconformities and there are igneous intrusions all over the place and probably veins of anything you care to mention. It is a most interesting area.”
“It seems surprisingly poorly provided with rivers, when you consider how rich the vegetation is,” Illya said.
“Ah, that is because they all run underground: the limestone is riddled with potholes and caves and subterranean channels, like the Departement of Haute Savoie in France. Most of them drain into the Bahr-el-Arab, the Bahr-el-Homr or the Soueh—and thus eventually into the Bahr-el-Ghaza river.”
While they ate a surprisingly sophisticated meal, Illya extended the story of his photographic expedition, mentioning the fictitious Waverly that he was supposed to meet. He was getting increasingly anxious about being out of touch with Solo and wondered if perhaps Rosa Harsch might have come across him.
“No, we have seen nobody except refugees from the burned villages,” she said. “And the forest is full of them. Trying not to starve, poor devils, and wondering all the time what is going to happen to them. So far as hiring animals at Halakaz is concerned, forget it. Halakaz is a six hundred year old mud fort with one street of tumbledown hovels leading up to it. If the inhabitants had seen a spare beast in the past ten years they would have cooked and eaten it. Where is the actual place of the rendezvous with your partner?”
“It was supposed to be somewhere near Gabotomi—only we were to keep in touch by radio, and mine was taken from me by an irregular colonel named Ononu…Speaking of Gabotomi, I believe that is a most interesting place, although it is not on the map. These so-called forbidden cities often are. Perhaps you could give me more explicit directions how to find it?”
But Rosa Harsch, whose replies had until then been detailed and specific, suddenly appeared to succumb to an attack of vagueness. She wasn’t quite sure, she said, where the place was—if it existed at all—and as far as she knew they had been nowhere near it. A few minutes later she rose to her feet and clapped her hands. “If you will excuse me,” she said, “there are two matters of a disciplinary nature which must be attended to before we retire. Mustapha! Ibrahim! Prepare things for the punishments, please.”
Two tall Nubians, who seemed to be in charge of the bearers, started shouting orders and the camp suddenly buzzed with activity. A trestle table was set up in the firelight and a bearer wearing only a pair of shorts was led up to it. He leaned forward over the end of the table. The Nubians spread his legs and tied the ankles to the table legs, binding his wrists and attaching them with another rope to the far trestle, so that he was stretched forwards across the length of the table.
The woman walked into her tent and reappeared with a peeled switch. “This man was discovered helping himself to more than his share of the liquor ration,” she said unemotionally. “Six strokes.”
She approached the table, measured her distance, and raised her arm. The switch hissed down and raised a livid weal. Illya watched in astonishment as the following five strokes fell in metronomic precision. Apart from a sharp intake of breath at each blow, the pinioned man uttered no sound. Nor was there any comment from the rest of the party, who watched in a grave-faced circle around the fire. As soon as the last stroke had fallen, Rosa Harsch turned her back and the Nubians rapidly released the victim, who limped back to his tent. A minute later they led a thin, bearded white man of about twenty-six to the table.
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