drive the phantoms from his mind.
He took the Lyndenburg turn off, cutting the corner of the triangle, and
the traffic thinned out to an occasional truck. He was able to go flat
out again, and race along the edge of the high escarpment. Then
suddenly the road turned and began its plunge down into the low veld.
When he emerged from the Erasmus tunnel David ran into the rain. it was
a solid grey bank of water that filled the air and buffeted the body of
the Pontiac. It flooded the road, so David had difficulty following its
verge beneath the standing sheets of water, and it swamped the
windshield, so that the efforts of the wipers to clear it were defeated.
David switched on his headlights and drove as fast as he dared, craning
forward in his seat to peer into the impenetrable blue-grey curtains of
rain.
Darkness came early in the rain, beneath the lowering black clouds, and
the wet road dazzled him with the reflections of his own headlights,
while the fat falling drops seemed as big as hailstones. He was forced
to moderate his speed a little more, creeping down the highway towards
Bandolier Hill.
In the darkness he almost missed the turning, and he reversed back to
it, swinging on to the unmade surface.
It was slushy with mud, puddled and swampy, slippery as grease.
Again he was forced to lower his speed.
Once he lost it, and slid broadside into the drainage ditch. By packing
loose stones under the wheels and racing the engine he pulled the
Pontiac out and drove on.
By the time he reached the bridge over the Luzane stream, he had been
six hours at the wheel of the Pontiac, and it was a few minutes after
eight o'clock in the evening.
As he reached the bridge the rain stopped abruptly, a freak hole in the
weather. Directly overhead the stars showed mistily, while around them
the cloud banks swirled, turning slowly, as though upon the axis of a
great wheel.
David's headlights cut through the darkness, out across the mad brown
waters to the far bank a hundred yards away. The bridge was submerged
under fifteen feet of flood water, and the water was moving so swiftly
that its waves and whirlpools seemed sculptured in polished brown
marble, and the trunks of uprooted trees dashed downstream upon the
flood.
It seemed impossible that the bed of this raging torrent had been the
narrow sandy bed in which Johan Akkers had run down Conrad with the
green Ford truck.
David climbed out of the Pontiac and walked down to the edge of the
water. As he stood there he saw the level creeping up perceptively
towards his feet. It was still rising.
He looked up at the sky, and judged that the respite in the weather
would not last much longer.
He reached his decision and ran back to the Pontiac.
He reversed well back onto the highest ground and parked it off the
verge with the headlights still directed at the river edge. Then,
standing beside the door, he stripped down to his shirt and underpants.
He pulled his belt from the loops of his trousers and buckled it about
his waist, then he tied his shoes to the belt by their laces.
Barefooted he ran to the edge of the water, and began to feel his way
slowly down the bank. It shelved quickly and within a few paces he was
knee-deep and the current plucked at him, viciously trying to drag him
off-balance.
He posed like that, braced against the current, and waited, staring
upstream. He saw the tree trunk coming down fast on the flood, with its
roots sticking up like beseeching arms. It was swinging across the
current and would pass him closely.
He judged his moment and lunged for it. Half a dozen strong strokes
carried him to it and he grasped one of the roots. Instantly he was
whisked out of the beams of the headlight into the roaring fury of the
river. The tree rolled and bucked, carrying him under and bringing him
up coughing and gasping.
Something struck him a glancing blow and he felt his shirt tear and the
skin beneath it rip. Then he was under water again, swirling end over
end and clinging desperately to his log.
All about him the darkness was filled with the rush and threat of crazy
water, and he was buffeted and flogged by its raw strength, grazed and
bruised by rocks and driftwood.
Suddenly he felt the log check and bump against an obstruction, turning
and swinging out into the current again.
David was blinded with muddy water and he knew there was a limit to how
much more of this treatment he could survive. Already he was weakening
quickly.
He could feel his mind and his movements slowing, like a battered prize
fighter in the tenth round.
He gambled it all on the obstruction which the log had encountered being
the far bank, and he released his death-grip on the root and stuck out
sideways across the current with desperate strength.
His overarm stroke ended in the trailing branches of a thorn tree
hanging over the storm waters. Thorns tore the flesh of his palm as his
grip closed over them, and he cried out at the pain but held on.
Slowly he dragged himself out of the flood and crawled up the bank,
hacking and coughing at the water in his lungs. Clear of the river, he
fell on his face in the mud and vomited a gush of swallowed water that
shot out of his nose and mouth.
He lay exhausted for a long while, until his coughing slowed and he
could breathe again. His shoes had been torn from his belt by the
current. He dragged himself to his feet and staggered forward into the
darkness. As he ran, he held his hand to his face, pulling the broken
thorns from the flesh of his palm with his teeth.
Stars were still showing overhead and by their feeble light he made out
the road, and he began to run along it, gathering strength with each
pace. It was very still now, with only the dripping of the trees and
the occasional far-off murmur of thunder to break the silence.
Two miles from the homestead, David made out the dark bulk of something
on the side of the road, and it was only when he was a few paces from it
that he realized it was an automobile, a late model Chevy. It had been
abandoned, bogged down in one of the greasy mudholes, that the rains had
opened.
The doors were unlocked and David switched on the interior and parking
lights. There was dried blood on the seat, a dark smear of it, and on
the back seat was a bundle of clothing. David untied it quickly and
recognized immediately the coarse canvas suiting as regulation prison
garb. He stared at it stupidly for a moment, until the impact of it
struck him.
The car was stolen, the blood probably belonging to the unfortunate
owner. The prison garb had been exchanged for other clothing, probably
taken from the body of the owner of the Chevy.
David knew then beyond all possible doubt that Johan Akkers was at
Jabulani, and that he had arrived before the bridge over the Luzane
stream had become impassable, probably three or four hours previously.
David threw the prison suiting back into the car, and he began to run.
Johan Akkers drove the Chevy across the Luzane bridge with the rising
waters swirling over the guard rail, and with the rain teeming down in
blinding white sheets.
The muddy water shoved at the body of the car, making steering
difficult, and it seeped in under the doors, flooding the floorboards
and swirling about Akkers feet; but he reached the safety of the far
bank and raced the engine as he shot up it. The wheels spun on the soft