The African Poison Murders (16 page)

“Lend a hand, there’s a good chap,” he shouted.

“Anita’s got a gang trying to hold the flames back — no chance of putting them out now. Take some of her boys and have a shot at heading it off from the other end. Once it gets a real hold in this forest we’re sunk. West should be along any minute.”

“Know how it started?” Vachell shouted. The crackle of advancing flames half drowned their voices.

“God knows. It’s the devil anyway.” Corcoran, swinging an axe, went back to his job, and Vachell ran on to where Anita Adams, blackened with ash and with eyes red and streaming from smoke, was beating viciously at a spitting line of fire amid a row of natives. He picked out four who had brought their long iron-bladed weeding knives and ran on 157

to the far extremity of the fire. It was eating its way rapidly up the slope towards the forest’s edge. He shouted instructions to the natives, and they began to hack and clear and beat with frantic energy.

It was a race against time, and the fire had a big start. At intervals the report of bursting timber shocked the ears like rifle shots. The natives worked silently, save for coughs and grunts as they hacked and beat at bush and smouldering grass. They could feel the fire gaining on them all the time. In two minutes Vachell’s hands were slippery with sweat, his eyes and throat smarting from billowing clouds of smoke. A little later he heard a shout behind him and looked round to see that West had arrived, axe in hand, with Norman Parrot and another gang of natives at his heels. They were all strung out now, in a long line, from Corcoran’s end to Vachell’s, but the smoke was so dense no one could see more than a few yards. Vachell’s gang was holding back the tip of the tongue of flame, but the fire was gaining ground farther along and the whole line was being pushed back steadily into the forest.

All sense of time left Vachell’s mind. Soon he was panting for breath, unconscious of legs and arms bleeding from scratches. He was in the forest now, with brambles and undergrowth tearing at his back. The air became hotter, and filled with noises of alarm. A sudden crash behind made him turn to see a heavy, dark form plunging away through the green waist-high undergrowth.

“Wild pig,” West shouted. He was working next 158

in line. “The fire must have got round behind us.

We’ll have to watch our step. I’m going to see if Janice is all right.”

“Where is she?” Vachell shouted back.

“Farther along with Corcoran, I think. The fire’s getting away a bit now. Careful you don’t get cut off. They move like hell sometimes.”

He was gone in an instant, swallowed by the underbrush. The fire had caught the branches now, and was crackling like a demon. There seemed to be a new note in its roar; it was getting its head.

Another crash in the bushes made him turn to see a bushbuck doe leaping through the shadows, her chestnut coat necked with white. Behind her hopped a small bushbuck calf, scared out of its wits.

Too bewildered to see where it was going, it almost hit Vachell’s legs; and then, paralysed by a new horror, it stood dead still in its tracks, trembling like a blade of grass. Vachell put out a hand and touched its soft warm coat. As if electrified, it crouched to the ground and leapt forward like a red bullet. It went back towards the fire, away from its mother, hopelessly lost.

The boys had moved out of sight down the line, summoned by shouts from Parrot. Something seemed to be going on down that way. Vachell began to wonder if Janice West was all right. It seemed hopeless, now, to try to stop the fire; it was about time to get out. He turned back, meaning to go around the end of the line of flames and get behind them. But a tongue of fire that had crept 159

around unnoticed and sprung up without warning inside the forest stopped him abruptly. He could see the glow of the devouring flames through a dense grey wall of smoke. The wind blew aside the smoky curtain for a moment and the red glare became visible beyond. It was uncanny to see fire overhead, in the treetops. The noise was a searing sound, like the perpetual tearing of calico amplified a hundred times. Heat came at him as if it meant to get him personally. No hope of getting through that way. He turned back and headed in the other direction, towards where West and Parrot had gone.

Keeping the fire on his right, he worked his way down through clinging undergrowth and the tangled mossy branches of trees. Parrot and the boys seemed to have cleared out, leaving the fire in undisputed possession. He called once or twice, but the roar of the flames drowned his voice. There was no sound, now, of shouts or the hacking of bushes.

He crossed a little game-path, the heat strong on his right cheek, and saw something lying there, black in the shadow. It was the bushbuck calf— or another just like it — that had collided with his legs a little while before. Wondering if it had got caught by the fire he turned it over with his foot, and the toe of his shoe came away dark with blood.

Surprised, he bent over it, and then felt a sudden shock of horror. The animal had not been killed by fire. Its throat had been cut from ear to ear.

He examined the small, limp body with nervous hands, half alarmed and half incredulous. To find 160

amid this display of Nature’s ruthlessness a footnote, as it were, on the wanton cruelty of man had a nightmarish quality. One of his companions had found the lust for blood unsatisfied by the fire’s destruction, had found time to kill a fear-crazed animal in the midst of fighting the flames.

The fire was crackling close upon him now, driving gusts of smoke and hot air into his face. He looked around quickly, for what he could not say: and saw the gleam of metal between the tangled arms of a bramble. He picked out a woodman’s hatchet, and ran on gripping it in his hand. He had seen that hatchet, or its double, half an hour before.

An ominous crackling and roaring just ahead brought him up dead in his tracks. Immediately in front smoke stood up like a wall in the sky. Fear of another kind swept over him now. Fire was ahead and behind; there was no way to get around.

There wasn’t time to think anything out. The pace of the advancing flames seemed to have doubled.

Vachell pulled out his handkerchief and tied it over his mouth and nose. He rammed his thick felt hat down over his eyes, grasped the hatchet, and ran at top speed towards the line of flames.

Fallen logs, clinging brambles, twining creepers held him back. The heat grew more intense, the roaring louder. He glanced up and saw, beneath the brim of his hat, a wall of fire coming at him with a sort of gloating fury. He took a deep gulp of air and smoke through the stifling handkerchief, put his head down, and charged into the flames. A wave of 161

white heat enveloped him and violent pain seared his arms and face. Something seemed to seize his foot; he stumbled, and flung out his arms. A scorching pain swept over his flesh, and his lungs were choking. Just as he seemed about to drown in a black, burning sea he felt a cold blast of air in his face, and collapsed on the ground in a paroxysm of coughing. The bare, black earth was hot, but not burning. He drew deep gulps of cold air into his lungs. Still coughing, he staggered farther out of the danger zone, scattering birds who were searching for the scorched bodies of insects. Beyond, the sun flooded a smokeless landscape; he was safe.

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FR1;FR2;CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

Three cars were parked together on the blackened pasture where the fire had passed. Vachell walked unsteadily towards them, still grasping the axe. His tongue and mouth felt dry and swollen and his heart bumped unevenly, but that was not only because of his escape. His eyes searched the group from a long way off for the figure he dreaded not to see. There was someone missing, but it wasn’t Janice West.

She was there, her pale face smudged with smuts like the rest of them, laughing over the blisters on her hands. Anita Adams, with considerable presence of mind, had brought a pocket firstaid kit, and was sticking elastoplast over broken blisters. Parrot, still in his old burberry, was assisting, and Corcoran was discussing the next move with two of the natives.

They were all relieved to see Vachell appear.

“We were getting rather anxious,” Corcoran said.

“I was afraid you’d be cut off. The fire’s going uphill now like a bat out of hell. You look as if it damned nearly got you.”

“I had to buck it,” Vachell said. <

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Everyone was startled when a voice from one of the parked cars said, with acid vehemence: “There’s a native cattle-track about a mile back, leading straight to Anstey’s farm. You could perfectly well have followed that.” It was Mrs Munson, sitting behind the wheel of the farm car as though she had been bedded out there.

“Thanks a lot,” Vachell said politely. “I’ll use it next time I get mixed up in a fire. Where’s Commander West?”

“He went back,” Janice answered. “He said he wanted to make sure all the boys had got out of the forest safely. Norman, there are none missing, are there?”

“No, they’re all present and correct,” Parrot said.

“At least, my bodyguard is, and I think I see all yours. This is where they come into their own, being black to start with. Self-colour’s so much smarter than this mottled effect, I think.”

“I wish Dennis would come,” Janice said. Then, for the first time, she caught sight of the axe. She put one hand to her throat, a gesture he remembered as if he had seen her do it a hundred times. “Where did you get that?” she asked. Her voice was low and flat.

“I found it, in there. I guess your husband dropped it, Mrs West.”

Janice made no comment. He could not see her eyes — they were fixed on the axe; but he could sense the uneasiness in her mind.

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“Did anyone else see West after he went back?”

Vachell inquired.

There was a short silence. Anita Adams, her firstaid job completed, looked up from the step of the car where she was sitting, elbows resting on her knees.

“I was just behind Janice and him,” she said. “I saw Commander West turn back, and he passed me.

He shouted something about it being all right for Janice that way, he was going to make sure the boys didn’t try the other direction, as it wasn’t safe.”

“What did you do?”

“Me? I caught Janice up, and we came back together.”

Vachell looked at Corcoran. “What about you?

Did you see Commander West?”

Corcoran shook his head, and ran a hand through his ruffled brown hair. He had a gash down one cheek and his shirt was torn.

“No. I didn’t see him at all,, after he first turned up, I mean. I asked him to go along down the line to your end of the fire. I thought there was more hope of stopping it that end. Parrot was with him then.”

The eyes of everyone turned to Parrot. He was standing close to Janice, lounging against the side of a car. His fair hair lay in close curls all over his head, making him look much younger than he was; but his voice was anxious.

“I didn’t see him after he went back to look for Janice,” Parrot said. “I went on beating and hacking 165

till it looked quite hopeless, and then I thought I’d better get everyone out while the going was good, just in case things got out of hand. I found Janice here, but no sign of Dennis. I suppose he …”

The harsh voice from the Munson car startled them all again. Everyone had forgotten about the figure behind the wheel.

“Talk, talk, talk,” it said. “West can perfectly well look after himself, I’ve no doubt. But if you all think something’s happened to him, why don’t you go and look?”

A dead silence followed her remark. It was too logical to dispute. Vachell put on his hat and leant the axe against the wing of a car.

“A guy has to draw breath between fires,” he said. “Did you see the Commander during the firelighting operations, Mrs Munson?”

“No, I didn’t.’

“Did you come up here right at the start of the fire?”

“Mind your own business.”

“For God’s sake don’t let’s start quarrelling now,”

Corcoran said, with unexpected force. “We’ve got to find West first. He’s sure to be all right, he probably got driven back into the forest a little way, but we’d better make certain before we all go home.”

He walked over the blackened pasture by Vachell’s side. The short tufty stubble scrunched beneath their feet and a little cloud of ashes kicked up behind each footstep.

“I’m afraid my aunt’s not in a very good temper,”

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he explained, half apologetically. “She had a bit of a knock over my uncle’s will. There’s going to be a hell of a row about it, but if I know Uncle Karl he’ll have got it all sewn up tighter than a bale of wool. Look here, what’s the idea? We can’t possibly find West, you know, even if something has gone wrong.”

“We can look. Maybe he made that cattle track Mrs Munson spoke of. He knew about it, I guess?”

“Oh, Lord, yes, everyone does; the natives use it a lot. He’d be quite safe, you see; he’d only have to strike the track and follow it up to Anstey’s place.

The fire hasn’t got as far as that yet.”

They walked on in silence over the fire-scorched ground. The earth was still warm under their feet, and quite lifeless. Every blade of grass and leaf of bush, every grasshopper and spider had perished; all about them was black and forlorn. Several crested cranes with brightly coloured plumage, gobbling fried insects, rose unhurriedly and flapped away, trailing their long legs behind.

“I don’t see what we can do,” Corcoran repeated.

“If West didn’t get round the fire in time we can’t reach him now.” His voice betrayed his uneasiness; Vachell said nothing. He was walking very fast, almost at a run. On the edge of the forest the big trees were still burning; some of them would go on smouldering for days. The heat was intense, the air thick and stifling with smoke.

Corcoran halted on the edge of the devastated 167

area, and asked: “What next?” He was clearly reluctant to go on.

“West had trouble with his lungs,” Vachell invented. “I didn’t want to say this in front of his wife, but I’m scared the smoke may have choked him. I reckon we’re about opposite where I found his axe. I’m going in to search. It’s easy behind the fire; all of the cover’s burnt out.”