‘Probably has a nasty headache as well,’ said Anastasia wearily. ‘But you’re right. I’ll see what I can do.’ She pulled herself slowly and carefully down the boat, aching in every muscle, moving like a very old lady.
The braided nylon line came undone surprisingly easily now that no one was chasing them. Especially under the bright beam of the Maglite. And it looked as though it would make a far more efficient restraint than the AK’s webbing sling. The boy was still groggy enough for Anastasia to risk loosening his wrists from his ankles and straightening him out before she re-secured him. Just to make doubly sure, however, she called over her shoulder to Celine, ‘Hold the gun on him while I do this, would you?’
Ten minutes later, he was lying on his back in the bottom of the boat — a useful piece of ballast if nothing else. His shoulders were wedged between the oars and the boathook was under his spine along the keel where he couldn’t get at it. His wrists were lashed together, as were his ankles. Anastasia had been generous with the rope and it looked as though they wouldn’t be tying up to any jetty in the immediate future. He also had a band around his chest and another round his knees securing him to the oars and the boathook — in case he took it into his head to start rolling around or kicking out.
‘All right, Celine,’ said Anastasia. ‘You can stop covering him now.’ She turned to her friend, looking at her properly for the first time since their escape.
Celine was slumped with the AK across her knees pointing at the boy. But her finger was nowhere near the trigger. Her arms were hanging limply, her hands resting in her lap like a pair of lilies. Her head was bowed and only the curve of the boat’s side was holding her erect. One side of her blouse was dark with blood. And Anastasia realized with a pang of utter horror that the woman she loved had been shot.
‘Don’t die!’ snarled Anastasia. ‘Don’t you dare die on me!’
Celine was lying on her back on top of the semi-conscious soldier. She was still unconscious. Her head was held by the ill-fitting combat boots that completed the soldier boy’s uniform and her own feet rested astride his battered face. Ado, at the left-hand side of the boat’s prow, was trying to balance Anastasia who was sitting on the right side of the stern, her backside on the only seat aboard, her torso leaning in over her friend’s right shoulder, her own shoulder hard against the outboard motor’s control lever as she worked. Celine’s blouse was open wide. The blood-soaked right cup of her bra gleamed under the still-bright beam of the Maglite. The strap that should have supported it was snapped right at the crest of her shoulder, above her collar bone where the bullet from Moses Nlong’s automatic had gone right through her trapezius muscle, about seven centimetres out from her neck. Anastasia tore the bra off, seeking a second, fatal bullet hole before it registered that there had been just one shot fired at them. She tore her eyes away from the liquid perfection of Celine’s right breast and concentrated on the damage that she could see.
Anastasia looked in horror down at the wound, her mind racing, with no idea just how lucky the wounded woman had been. As wounds went, it was about as neat as could be expected. The bullet had simply gone straight in and straight out.
Memory kicked in. The last time Anastasia had seen anything like this was when the lead singer of Simian Artillery had accidentally shot his lead guitarist during a variation on Russian Roulette that had formed the centrepiece of a marathon drinking session at the Ermitage Hotel after a sell-out concert in St Petersburg. Anastasia, the soberest of the group, had packed the entry and exit wounds with clean cloth, bound tight, and phoned the hotel’s doctor. Who, as it turned out, had complimented her work and said she had missed her vocation as a nurse. Just before the disgruntled night manager threw them all out of his exclusive hotel — and suggested they try the Baskov Hotel instead.
She knew what to do, therefore — but she wasn’t so sure she had the wherewithal to do it. The cleanest piece of cloth on board was likely to be Ado’s blouse or the T-shirt she wore beneath it. They, unlike Anastasia’s or Celine’s own, had not been rolling around in God knew what underneath the chapel. The blouse was cotton and too flimsy. The T-shirt was more substantial however. And, although Ado was by no means fully grown, there was a good deal more of her than there was of Anastasia — and a good deal more T-shirt, therefore.
‘Ado,’ said the Russian after a moment, ‘pass me the Victorinox and your T-shirt.’
By midnight the wound was bound. Celine was resting more comfortably and both Ado and the prisoner seemed to be sound asleep. Anastasia wearily relieved herself over the stern, trying not to take too seriously the mental picture of a crocodile rising to bite off her backside. Then she too slumped sideways on the seat, trying without much success to make herself comfortable as she leaned back on to the top of the outboard motor. But even so, she went to sleep. It was only in her dreams that she began to come to terms with what had happened — what was happening still — at the chapel and the compound. But by the time she woke, she knew with a bone-deep certainty that she was going to have to do something about it.
Anastasia sprang awake six hours later as the sun rose behind her and sent its first rays like a golden hammer to batter the back of her skull. Without thinking, she sat up, stretched, and reached down into the river to scoop a handful of blessedly cool water. She poured this over her head. It ran down her face and she licked her lips. It tasted sweet. She looked over the side. The river’s surface was glassy and clear. Her gaze plunged down into the crystal depths. Only at the deepest reach did shadowy hints of river-bed come and go, like reflected clouds far, far below. She scooped more water from the upper reaches. Drank and began to look around.
She looked down at Celine first and was relieved to see her apparently sleeping peacefully. The white pads she had fashioned from Ado’s T-shirt were still in place, and still white. Their pressure had stopped the bleeding at least. Anastasia reached down to pull the wounded woman’s blouse together in a vain attempt to cover up her breasts. Then she looked up and out a little further. And met Ado’s wise eyes. ‘Thanks for the T-shirt,’ she said in Matadi. ‘The bandage seems to be holding well.’
Ado nodded, her face still serious and thoughtful. Her blouse was little more substantial than Celine’s but at least it was decorously buttoned.
‘You didn’t kill me!’ a wondering, masculine voice announced from the bottom of the boat. ‘I thought you had killed me.’ The prisoner spoke Yoruba, but Matadi was a sub-dialect of the West African lingua franca and they could all understand each other.
‘We probably should have,’ snapped Anastasia. ‘Your friends have killed our friends — killed them and eaten them. And taken our students as slaves and soldiers. We need fewer like you, not more!’
‘But we do not slay our enemies,’ said Ado simply. ‘We love them. And we do good to those that hate us. It is what Father Antoine said.’
‘Father Antoine,’ answered Anastasia brutally, ‘was the first to die.’
‘Anastasia!’ Celine’s gentle voice came from beside the Russian’s foot. The tone of the word was that of a parent chiding a child. But instead of berating her, Celine simply said, ‘I’m thirsty.’
Celine was too weak to sit on the seat beside the outboard, but some cautious wriggling soon had her resting at a slight angle with her back against the curve of the side and her wounded shoulder in the shade of the seat above her. Anastasia scooped handful after handful of sweet water from the river and fed it to her friend — and Ado did the same for the soldier at her feet. The Russian woman at last took the opportunity to look around and get a clearer measure of their wider situation.