But then something distracted her. A trick of the light, she thought. The shaggy overgrowth crowning the nearest island seemed suddenly to be illuminated from inside, as though not crocodiles but the strange local dancing deity Ngoboi and his ghostly lieutenants were about some supernatural business in there.
Robin drew in a breath to tell Bonnie and Caleb about her strange vision, when the most unexpected thing happened. Someone started shooting at them. A long rattle of automatic fire rang out across the silence of the river. Silence she hadn’t even registered until the gunshots shattered it. She ducked, flinching.
‘Get below,’ ordered Caleb. ‘Hurry! Kill the light!’ And he shepherded them to the ladder down to the deck. ‘Into the cabin,’ he said as they reached the deck — then he strode through into the bridge.
‘What on earth was that?’ asked Bonnie, shaken, as they stepped down into the cool of the mess.
‘Someone took a potshot at us,’ said Robin briefly.
As Bonnie sat, shaken, on one of the padded benches that would later fold out into bunks, Robin stationed herself at the foot of the companionway leading up into the command bridge. She could hear the creak of Caleb and his bridge watch sitting in the big pilot’s seats she had seen as she went past. She could hear the pinging of the sonar and the occasional contact from the collision alarm radar as a particularly solid raft of water hyacinth washed downstream towards them. The motors were grumbling away behind her at the stern, and those floating mats of water hyacinth were still whispering past the outside of the hull. But none of the noises around her were loud enough to drown out the quiet conversation the captain was having with his navigators and communications officer. Some of the technical language tested her understanding of Matadi to the utmost, but she filled in the gaps easily enough by assessing what she would be asking and answering under the circumstances.
‘No contact?’ Caleb asked quietly.
‘No, Captain. I’ve tried every channel. There’s no radio signal anywhere nearby.’ That would be the radio officer.
‘OK,’ decided Caleb. ‘Contact base, report that shots were fired near to us — perhaps at us. No damage or casualties to report. But maybe they should be aware downriver. Sanda, anything?’
‘The light beyond the island seems to have gone out. I guess there was some kind of vessel there and that’s most likely where the shots came from. But she seems to have gone now. Do you want to pursue, Captain?’
‘No. It’s not really an option,’ said Caleb. ‘Navigator, where do you estimate the nearest big break in the island chain on our port side is?’
‘Seven klicks ahead.’
‘Five minutes at full speed. Twenty-five given the current situation. No. We’ll carry on with the mission. But we’ll keep a careful watch. And put the searchlight on again.’
‘Man the gun, just in case?’ asked the lieutenant.
‘No, Sanda. Nor the machine guns. Let’s keep everyone inside where it’s nice and safe. For the time being, at least. Now, who’s on galley duty? Let’s get back to routine as soon as possible. You have the con, Sanda. And I want to know the instant we get free of this garbage blocking our way. I want a fast run up to Citematadi if humanly possible.’
‘Yes, Captain.’
Robin didn’t recognize the man who served dinner, but she decided that when the opportunity arose she would get his recipe for fish pepper soup and Jollof rice. The fish pepper soup wasn’t a soup and it wasn’t made with fish. It was a thick stew of huge delta prawns and a range of peppers — sweet and hot — and tomatoes. It was heavenly and it complemented the rice and mixed vegetables perfectly. She would have gone for seconds — but the seconds were gone before she finished her huge first serving. ‘You’ll have to be quicker than that Captain Mariner,’ said Caleb in English, his deep voice rumbling with amusement. ‘Seaman Erelu’s obe eja tutu is famous throughout the fleet. Don’t despair, though, there’s Rocky Road for dessert.’
Robin and Bonnie dragged the meal out a little and Caleb’s crew indulged them, for there were no entertainment facilities aboard. They were politely refused permission to help with the washing-up, but they were permitted back up on deck as the boat’s evening routine proceeded in unhurried efficiency. Once cleared, the table was elevated and bunks folded down. The heads were tiny, but big enough to allow more than mere functionality — there would have been room to change into night-things had either woman wanted to. But they were both still too excited, and so they wandered around, above-decks and below, trying not to get in the way.
The next excitement came when the Shaldag finally broke free of the hyacinth-clogged channel between the islands and the southern shore. As soon as he was clear, Caleb pushed the throttles forward and his command sat up on the water again as her speed climbed. But from what Robin remembered of the notes on the map he had shown them at the briefing, they were badly behind schedule now. It came as no surprise, therefore, when they sped past the lights of Malebo township which glittered briefly on the far, northern, bank just before midnight.
Neither Robin nor Bonnie had any intention of sleeping, even though bunks had been prepared for them below with courtesy and care. The adventure had been quite exciting enough before the ingredients of unexplained gunfire, water-hyacinth clots and long fast runs up black, benighted river were added to the mix. And, to make the temptation of deck over bunk quite irresistible, there was a low, full moon dead ahead, magnified by some trick of the heavy, humid atmosphere, rising like a fat pendulous silver sun, while the stars lay scattered overhead like huge pearls across the black velvet of the lightless interstellar sky. The amazing moon lit their way so brightly that Caleb ordered the searchlight off again and let his command cut like a shadow through the shimmering majesty of the night.
Where the atmosphere at sunset had seemed threatening, almost horrific, thought Robin dreamily, now it was the opposite. The curve of the river with its overhanging forest-buttressed bank, the occasional tall palm tree soaring high against the Milky Way, was something out of every jungle romance ever written or filmed. And the figures standing so close together at the helm seemed almost to be outlined in a pearly luminescence. The air on the broader reach was cooler. It carried out to the speeding vessel the odours of the jungle so close at hand. Sometimes the rich stench of rotting detritus left high after the recent floods. Sometimes the clear crisp smell of fresh green vegetation, reminding Robin irresistibly of fresh cut grass. But the jungle was secondary; overgrowing what had in many places been civilized into gardens before the wildness reclaimed it. So once in a while — and more often as they approached Citematadi in the small hours — there were scents familiar from Robin’s own garden: bougainvillea, buddleia, magnolia, myrtle and, ‘Is that night-flowering jasmine I can smell?’ asked Bonnie.
The breeze also seemed to carry sounds out of the vast near-silence that stretched out beyond the grumble of the engines. The whispering of the wavelets beneath the sharp bows and square back in the wake, the rustling of the millions upon millions of leaves. The occasional creaking of more substantial branches. Strange, formless sounds that made Robin think of wild animals — panthers and crocodiles — again, and also brought Ngoboi and his whirling acolytes to mind once more. But then, quite suddenly, very much more precisely placed, just round the wide right-hand bend dead ahead, there was a muted thunder that was more than fanciful imagination. ‘What’s that noise?’ asked Robin.
Right at the same instant as Bonnie asked, ‘Is that woodsmoke I can smell?’