The rain began to fall like silver arrows in the headlights, each drop exploding in a white blur against the glass then streaming down it so copiously that the wipers could not clear the windshield fast enough.
Soon it was oppressively humid in the closed cab and the windscreen began to mist over. Daniel leaned forward to wipe it clear with his hand but when it smeared he gave up the effort and opened his side window a few inches to let in the fresh night air. Almost immediately he wrinkled his nose and sniffed.
Jock smelt it at almost the same moment. Smoke, he exclaimed. How far are we from the camp? Almost there, Daniel replied. Just over the next ridge. The odour of smoke thinned out. Daniel thought that it might have come from the cooking-fires in the servants compound.
Ahead of them in the path of the headlights the gates of the main camp sprang out of the darkness. Each whitewashed column was crowned by the bleached skull of an elephant. The sign read: WELCOME TO CHIWEWE CAMP THE HOME OF THE ELEPHANTS and then in smaller letters, All arriving visitors must report immediately to the Warden's Office.
The long driveway, lined on each side with dark Casia trees, was running ankle deep with storm water and the Toyota's tires threw up a dense fog of spray as Daniel headed for the main block of buildings.
Suddenly the reek of smoke was thick and rank in their nostrils. It was the smell of burning thatch and wood with a foul underlay of something else, flesh or bone or ivory, perhaps, although Daniel had never smelt ivory burning. No lights, Daniel grunted as he saw the loom of dark buildings in the rain ahead. The camp generator was not running; the entire camp was in darkness. Then he became aware of a diffused ruby light that shimmered over the wet Casia trees and played gently on the walls of the buildings. One of the buildings is on fire.
Jock sat forward in his seat. That's where the smoke is coming from.
The Toyota's headlights cut a broad swathe through the gloom and then focused on a huge amorphous dark pile ahead of them. The misted windscreen obscured his vision and for some moments Daniel could not decide what it was. The strange glow seemed to emanate from it. Only as they drove closer and the lights lit it more clearly could he recognize it as the blackened, smouldering ruins of the ivory godown.
Horrified by what he saw, Daniel let the Toyota roll to a halt and he stepped down into the mud and stared at the ruin.
The heat of the flames had cracked the walls and most of them had collapsed. The fire must have been an inferno to have produced such heat. It still burned and smouldered despite the cascading rain. Oily streamers of smoke drifted across the headlights of the truck and occasionally the flames flared up fiercely until the heavy raindrops beat them down again.
Daniel's sodden shirt clung to his body and the rain soaked his hair, smearing his thick curls over his forehead and into his eyes. He pushed them back and scrambled up on to the tumbled masonry of the wall. The collapsed roof was a thick mattress of black ash and charred beams that clogged the interior of the devastated godown. Despite the rain the smoke was still too dense and the heat too fierce to allow him to approach any closer and discover how much of the ivory still lay under that blackened pile.
Daniel backed away and ran to the truck. He climbed into the cab and wiped the rain out of his eyes with the palm of his hand. You were spoton, Jock said. It looks as if the bastards have hit the camp.
Daniel did not answer. He started the engine and gunned the Toyota up the hill to the warden's cottage. Get the flashlight out of the locker, he snapped.
Obediently Jock knelt on the seat and groped in the heavy tool-locker that was bolted to the truck bed, and came out with the big Maglite.
Like the rest of the camp the warden's cottage was in darkness. The rain streamed down from the eaves in a silver torrent so that the headlights could not illuminate the screened verandah beyond. Daniel snatched the torch from Jock's hand and jumped out into the rain.
Johnny! he yelled. Mavis! He ran to the front door of the cottage.
The door had been smashed half off its hinges and hung open. He ran through on to the verandah.
The furniture was shattered and thrown about in confusion.
He played the torch-beam over the chaos. Johnny's cherished collection of books had been tumbled from their cases along the wall and lay in heaps with their pages fanned and their spines broken.
Johnny! Daniel shouted. Where are you?
He ran through the open double doors into the sitting-room.
Here the destruction was shocking. They had hurled all Mavis's ornaments and vases at the stone fireplace and the broken shards glittered in the torch beam. They had ripped the stuffing out of the sofa and easy chairs. The room stank like an animal cage and he saw that they had defecated on the carpets and urinated down the walls.
Daniel stepped over the reeking piles of faeces and ran through into the passageway that led to the bedrooms. Johnny! he shouted in anger and despair, as he played the torch-beam down the length of the passage.
On the end wall was a decoration that had not been there before. It was a dark star-shaped splash of paint that covered most of the white-painted surface. For a moment Daniel stared at it uncomprehendingly and then he dropped the beam to the small huddled shape that lay at the foot of the wall.
Johnny and Mavis had named their only son after him, Daniel Robert Nzou.
After two daughters, Mavis had finally given birth to a son and both parents had been overjoyed.
Daniel Nzou had been four years old. He lay on his back. His eyes were open but sightlessly staring into the beam of the torch.
They had killed him in the old barbaric African way, in the same way that Chaka's and Mzilikazi's impis had dealt with the male children of a vanquished tribe. They had seized little Daniel by the ankles and swung him head-first against the wall, crushing his skull and beating his brains out against the brickwork.
His splattering blood had daubed that crude mural on the white surface.
Daniel stooped over the little boy. Despite the deformation of the crushed skull his resemblance to his father was still marked. Tears prickled the rims of Daniel's eyelids and he stood up slowly and turned to the bedroom door.
It stood half open but Daniel dreaded pushing it all the way.
He had to force himself to do it. The hinges of the door whined softly as it swung open.
For a moment Daniel stared down the beam of the Maglite as he let it play around the bedroom and then he reeled back into the passageway and leaned against the wall, gagging and gasping for breath.
He had witnessed scenes such as these during the days of the bush war, but the years had eroded his conditioning and softened the shell that he had built up to protect himself. He was no longer able to look dispassionately on the atrocity that man is able to perpetrate on his fellows.
Johnny's daughters were older than their brother. Miriam was-ten and Suzie almost eight. They lay naked and spreadeagled on the floor at the foot of the bed. They had both been raped repeatedly. Their immature genitalia were a torn and bloody mush.
Mavis was on the bed. They had not bothered to strip her entirely, but had merely pushed her skirts up around her waist.
Her arms were pulled up above her head and tied by the wrists to the wooden headboard. The two little girls must have died of shock and loss of blood during the prolonged assault upon them. Mavis had probably survived until they were finished with her, then they had put a bullet through her head.