The Leopard Hunts in Darkness (38 page)

She nodded.

‘Have you got Timon’s pistol?’

She nodded again, groping for it in the waistband of her jeans.

‘You do know how to use it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Keep one bullet for the end.’

She stared at him.

‘Promise you won’t hesitate.’

‘I promise,’ she whispered.

He lifted his head slowly. The patrol was four hundred yards out from the edge of the pan, and as he had guessed, they were already spreading into the arrowhead hunting formation.

As they separated from a single amorphous blot in the poor light, he was able to count them. Five! His spirits dropped again sharply. Timon had not done as well as he had hoped for. He had
culled out only three of the original pursuit. Five was too many for Craig. Even with all the advantages of surprise and concealment, it was just too many.

‘Keep your face down,’ he whispered. ‘It can shine like a mirror.’ Obediently she dropped it into the crook of her arm. He pulled up his shirt to cover his own mouth and
nose, and watched them come on.

Oh God, they are good, he thought. Look at them move! They have been going all night, and they are still as sharp and wary as lynx. The point was a tall Shona who moved like a reed in the wind.
He carried his AK 47 low on the right hip, and he was charged with a deadly intensity of concentration. Once the light of coming dawn caught his eyes and they flashed like distant cannon-fire in
the blackness of his face. Craig recognized him as the main man.

His drags, two on each side of him, were sombre, stocky figures, full of dark menace and yet subservient to the man who led. They reacted like puppets to the hand-signals that the tall Shona
gave them. They came on silently towards the edge of the pan, and Craig arranged the wires across the palm of his left hand and ran them out between his fingers.

Fifty paces from the bank the Shona stopped them with a cut-out signal, and the line froze. The Shona’s head turned slowly from side to side as he surveyed the low bank and the scrub
beyond it. He took five paces forward, stepping lightly, and stopped again. His head turned once more, back and forth – and then back again. He had seen something. Craig instinctively held
his breath as the seconds drew out.

Then the Shona moved again. He swivelled and picked out his flanks, marking them with a stab of his forefinger, and then a pumped fist. Their formation changed into a reversed arrowhead –
the Shona had adopted the traditional fighting formation of the Nguni tribes, the ‘bull’s horns’ that King Chaka had used to such terrible effect, and now the horns were moving to
invade Craig’s position.

Craig felt a surge of relief at his own foresight in spreading the grenades so widely. The two flank men would walk almost on top of his outside grenades. He sorted the wires in his hand, taking
up the slack, and watching the flank men come on. He wished it had been the tall Shona, the danger man, but he had not moved again. He was still way back out of blast range, watching and directing
the flanking movement.

The man on the right reached the bank, and gingerly stepped up onto it, but the man on the left was still ten paces out on the pan.

‘Together,’ Craig whispered. ‘I’ve got to take them together.’

The man on the bank must have almost brushed the hidden grenade with his knee as Craig let him overrun it. The man on the left reached the bank, there was a bloody bandage around his head,
Timon’s work. The grenade would be at about the level of his navel. Craig heaved with all his weight on the two outside wires, and heard the firing handles fly off the grenades with a
metallic Twang! Twang!

Three seconds delay on the primers, and the Shona were reacting with trained reflexes. The man on the bank dropped from sight, but Craig judged he was too close to the grenade to survive. The
three others out on the pan went down also, firing as they dropped, rolling sideways as they hit the crust, firing again, raking the top of the bank.

Only the trooper out on the left, the wounded man, perhaps slowed by his injury, stayed on his feet those fatal seconds. The grenade exploded with the brilliance of a flashbulb, and the man was
hit by fragmenting shrapnel. He was lifted off his feet as the blast tore into his belly. On the right the other grenade burst in brief thunder, and Craig heard the taut, drumlike sound of shrapnel
slapping into flesh.

Two of the bastards, he thought, and tried for the tall Shona, but his aim was through scrub and over the lip of the bank, and the Shona was rolling. Craig’s first burst kicked white salt
inches short, but on line, his second burst was a touch left, and the Shona fired back and kept rolling.

One of the other troopers jumped up and charged the bank, jinking like a quarter-back with the ball, and Craig swung onto him. He hit him cleanly with a full burst, starting at the level of his
crotch and pulling up across his belly and chest. The AK 47 was notorious for the way she rode up in automatic and Craig had compensated for it. The trooper dropped his rifle, and spun around
sharply, fell onto his knees and then toppled forward on his face like a Muslim at prayer.

The tall Shona was up, coming in, shouting an order, the second man followed him, twenty paces behind. Craig switched his aim back to him exultantly. He couldn’t miss now. The AK 47 kicked
once, and then snapped on an empty chamber. The Shona kept on coming, untouched.

Craig was not as quick on the reload as he had once been; just that micro-second too late he swung back onto the Shona, and as he squeezed the trigger, the man dropped out of sight, below the
rim of the bank, and Craig’s burst flew high and harmless.

Craig swore, and swung left onto the last trooper who was just five paces from the safety of the bank. It was snap shooting, but a single lucky bullet out of the long burst hit him in the mouth,
and snapped his head back like a heavy punch. The burgundy-red beret, glowing like a pretty bird in the dawn light, flew high in the air, and the trooper collapsed.

Four out of five in the first ten seconds, it was more than Craig could possibly have hoped for, but the fifth man, the danger man, was alive down there below the bank – and he must have
marked Craig’s muzzle flashes. He had Craig pinpointed.

‘Keep under the sheet,’ Craig ordered Sally-Anne, and pulled the wires on the other three grenades. The explosions were almost simultaneous, a thunderous roll like the broadside of a
man-of-war, and in the dust and flame, Craig moved.

He went forward and right, thirty running paces, doubled over, with the reloaded AK in his hand, and he dived forward and rolled and then waited, belly down, covering the spot below the bank
where the Shona had disappeared, but darting quick glances left and right.

The light was better, the dawn coming up fast, and the Shona moved. He came up over the bank, a brief silhouette against the white pan, quick as a mamba but where Craig had not expected him. He
must have elbow-walked under the bank, and he was way out on Craig’s left.

Craig swung the AK onto him, but held his fire, that quick chance wasn’t good enough to betray his new position, and the Shona disappeared into the low brush fifty paces away. Craig
crawled forward to intercept, slowly as an earthworm, making no noise, raising no dust, and listening and staring with all his being. Long seconds drew out, slow as treacle, and Craig inched
forward, knowing that the Shona must be working towards where he had left Sally-Anne.

Then Sally-Anne screamed. The sound raked his nerve ends like an emery wheel, and out of the brush they rose together, Sally-Anne fighting and clawing like a cat and the Shona holding her by the
hair, down on his knees, but holding her easily, turning with her to frustrate any chance of a shot.

Craig charged. It was not a conscious decision. He found himself on his feet, hurling forward, swinging the AK 47 like a club. The Shona saw him, released Sally-Anne and she staggered backwards
and fell. The Shona ducked under the swinging rifle, and hit Craig in the ribs with his shoulder as he came off his knees. The rifle flew from Craig’s hands, and he grappled, holding
desperately as he fought to regain the breath that had been driven out of him. The Shona, realizing that his rifle was useless in hand-to-hand contact, let it fall, and used both arms.

Craig knew in that first moment of contact that the Shona was simply too strong for him. He had height and weight and he was trained to the hardness of black anthracite. He whipped a long arm
around the back of Craig’s neck, but Craig, instead of resisting, put all his own weight into the direction of the Shona’s pull. It took him by surprise, and they cartwheeled. As he
went over, Craig kicked out with the metal leg – but he didn’t connect cleanly.

The Shona twisted and struck back at him. Craig smothered it and they locked, chest to chest, rolling first one on top, then the other, flattening the coarse scrub, their breathing hissing into
each other’s face. The Shona snapped like a wolf at Craig’s face with his square white teeth. If he got a grip, he would bite off Craig’s nose or rip his cheek away. Craig had
seen it done before in beerhall brawls.

Instead of pulling his head back, Craig butted forward with his forehead, and hit him in the mouth. One of the Shona’s incisors snapped off at the gum and his mouth glutted with blood.
Craig reared back to butt him again, but the Shona shifted over him and suddenly he had the trench knife out of its scabbard on his belt. Craig grabbed his wrist desperately, only just smothering
the stab.

They rolled and the Shona came out on top, straddling Craig, the knife in his right hand probing with the bright silver point for Craig’s throat and face. Craig got both hands to it, one
on the Shona’s wrist, the other into the crook of his elbow, but he couldn’t hold him. The knife point descended slowly towards him, and the Shona kicked his legs and locked one between
Craig’s, pinning him like a lover.

Down came the knife, and behind it, the Shona’s face, swollen with effort, his broken tooth pink with blood, blood running from his chin and dripping into Craig’s upturned face, his
eyes mottled with tiny brown veins, bulging from their sockets – and the knife came down.

Craig put all his strength against him. The knife point checked for a second, then moved down to touch Craig’s skin in the notch where his collar-bones met. It stung like a hypodermic
needle as it pierced the skin. With a sense of horror, Craig felt the Shona’s body gathering for the final thrust that would force the silver steel through his larynx – and he knew that
he could not prevent it.

Miraculously, the Shona’s head changed shape, distorting like a rubber Hallowe’en mask, collapsing upon itself, the contents of the skull bursting in a liquid fountain from his
temple – and the sound of a shot dinned in on Craig’s eardrums. The strength went out of the Shona’s body and he rolled off and flopped on the ground like a fresh-caught
catfish.

Craig sat up. Sally-Anne was only feet away, kneeling facing him, the Tokarev pistol held double-handed, the barrel still pointing skywards where the recoil had thrown it. She must have placed
the muzzle against the Shona’s temple before she fired.

‘I killed him,’ she breathed gustily and her eyes were filled with horror.

‘Thank God for it!’ Craig gasped, using the collar of his shirt to dry the nick on his throat.

‘I’ve never killed anything before,’ Sally-Anne whispered. ‘Not even a rabbit nor a fish – nothing.’

She dropped the pistol and started to dry-wash her hands, scrubbing one with the other, staring at the Shona’s corpse. Craig crawled to her, and took her in his arms. She was shaking
wildly.

‘Take me away,’ she pleaded. ‘Please, Craig. I can smell the blood, take me away from here.’

‘Yes. Yes.’ He helped her to her feet, and in a frenzy of haste rolled the groundsheet and buckled the straps of the rucksacks.

‘This way.’ Burdened by both packs and the rifle, Craig led her away from the killing ground towards the west.

They had been going for almost three hours and had stopped for the first sparing drink, before Craig realized his terrible oversight.
The water bottles!
In his panickly haste, he had
forgotten to take the water bottles from the dead Shona.

He looked back longingly. Even if he left Sally-Anne here and went back alone, it would cost him four hours, and the Third Brigade patrols would surely be coming up. He weighed the water bottle
in his hand, a quarter full: barely enough to see out this day, even if they laid up now and waited for nightfall and the cool, not nearly enough if they kept going – and they had to keep
going.

The decision was made for him. The sound of a single-engined aircraft throbbing down from the north. Bitterly he stared up into the pale desert sky, feeling the helplessness of the rabbit below
the towering falcon.

‘Spotter plane,’ he said, and listened to the beat of the engine. It receded for a while, and then grew stronger again.

‘They are flying a grid search.’

As he spoke, he saw it. It was closer than he had thought, and much lower. He forced Sally-Anne down with a hand on her shoulder, and spread the cape over her, glancing back as he did so. It was
coming on swiftly, a low-winged, single-engined monoplane. It altered course slightly, heading directly towards him. He dropped down beside Sally-Anne and crawled under the groundsheet beside
her.

The engine roared louder. The pilot had spotted them. Craig lifted a corner of the groundsheet and looked out.

‘Piper Lance,’ said Sally-Anne softly.

It carried Zimbabwe Air Force roundels, and incongruously the pilot was a white man, but there was a black man in the right-hand seat, and he wore the dreaded burgundy-red beret and silver
cap-badge. They both stared down expressionlessly as the Piper made a steep turn, with one wingtip pointed like a knife directly at where Craig lay. The black officer was holding the radio
microphone to his lips. The wings of the Piper levelled and she came out of her turn, heading back the way she had come. The throb of the engine receded and was lost in the desert silence.