It's a gang of them, he realised with despair. They are all over the camp. They are attacking the compound. And then, My babies. Oh, God!
My babies!
He thought about the weapons in the room next door, but he knew he could not get that far. Even if he did, how could he handle a rifle with half his guts shot away and his life-blood spreading in a pool under him?
He heard the trucks. He recognised the beat of the big diesels and knew that they were the refrigerator trucks. He felt a surge of hope.
Gama, he thought. David . . . But it was short-lived. Lying on his side, clinging to his severed artery, he looked across the room and realised that he could see through the open door.
One of the white refrigerator trucks pulled into his view. It reversed up against the door of the ivory godown. As soon as it parked, Gomo jumped out of the cab and began a heated, gesticulating discussion with the scar-faced leader of the gang In his confused and swiftly weakening condition, it took Johnny several seconds to work it out.
Gama, he thought. Gomo is one of them. He set it up.
It should not have come as such a shock. Johnny knew how pervasive was the corruption in the government, in all departments, not only the Parks Administration. He had given evidence before the official commission of enquiry that was investigating the corruption, and had pledged to help stamp it out. He knew Gomo well. He was arrogant and self-seeking.
He was just the type, but Johnny had never expected treachery on this scale.
Suddenly the area around the godown that Johnny could see was teeming with the other members of the gang. Swiftly Scarface organised them into a work-party. One of them shot the lock off the door of the warehouse and the bandits laid aside their weapons and swarmed into the building. There were shouts of greedy joy as they saw the piles of ivory and then they formed a human chain and began passing out the tusks, and loading them into the truck.
Johnny's vision began to fade. Clouds of darkness passed across his eyes and there was a soft singing in his ears.
I'm dying, he thought without emotion. He could feel the numbness spreading from his paralysed legs up through his chest.
He forced the darkness back from his eyes and thought that he must be fantasising, for now Ambassador Ning stood in the late sunlight below the verandah. He still had the binoculars slung over his shoulder and his manner was impossibly cool and urbane. Johnny tried to shout a warning to him, but it came out of his throat in a soft croak that did not carry beyond the room in which he lay.
Then to his astonishment he saw the scar-faced leader of the gang come to where the ambassador stood and salute him, if not respectfully, at least with recognition of his authority.
Ning. Johnny forced himself to believe it. It really is Ning.
I'm not dreaming it.
Then the voices of the two men carried to where he lay.
They were speaking in English. You must hurry your men, Ning Cheng Gong said. They must get the ivory loaded, I want to leave here immediately.
Money, answered Sali . One thousand dollars. . . His English was atrocious. You have been paid. Cheng was indignant. I have paid you your money. More money. More one thousand dollars. Sali grinned at him. More money or I stop. We go, leave you, leave ivory. You are a scoundrel, Cheng snarled. Not understand "scoundrel", but think you also "scoundrel", maybe.
Sali's grin widened. Give money now. I haven't any more money with me, Cheng told him flatly. Then we go! Now! You load ivory yourself.
Wait. Cheng was obviously thinking quickly. I haven't got money.
You take the ivory, as much as you want. Take everything you can carry.
Cheng had realised that the poachers would be able to take only a negligible number of tusks from the hoard. They could not possibly manage more than a single tusk each. Twenty men, twenty tusks, it was a small price.
Soli stared at him while he considered the offer. Clearly he had milked every possible advantage from the situation, so at last he nodded.
Good! We take ivory. He began to turn away.
Ambassador Ning called after him. Wait, Sali ! What about the others?
Did you take care of them? They all dead. The warden and his woman and children? Them too? All dead, Sali repeated. Woman is dead, and her piccanins.
My men make jig-jig with all three women first. Very funny, very nice jig-jig. Then kill . The warden? Where is he? Sali the poacher jerked his head towards the door of Johnny's office. I shoot him boom, boom.
He dead like a ngulubi, dead like a pig. He laughed. Very good job, hey?
He walked away with the rifle over his shoulder, still chuckling, and Cheng followed him out of Johnny's field of vision.
Anger came to arm Johnny and give him just a little more strength.
The poacher's words conjured up a dreadful vision of the fate that had overtaken Mavis and the children. He could see it as clearly as if he had been there; he knew about rape and pillage. He had lived through the bush war.
He used the strength of his anger to begin to wriggle across the floor towards his desk. He knew he could not use a weapon. All he could hope for now in the few minutes of life that remained to him was to leave some sort of message. Papers had spilled off his desk and littered the floor.
If he could just get to a single sheet, and write on it and hide it, the police would find it later.
He moved like a maimed caterpillar, lying on his back, still clutching the severed artery. He drew up his good knee, dug in his heel and pushed himself painfully across the floor, sliding on his back a few inches at a time, his own blood lubricating his passage. He moved six feet towards the desk and reached out for one of the sheets of paper. He saw then that it was a sheet from the wages register.
He had not touched it when the intensity of the light in the room altered. Somebody was standing in the doorway. He turned his head and Ambassador Ning was staring at him. He had come up on to the verandah.
His rubber-soled training shoes made no sound at all. Now he stood petrified with shock in the doorway, and for a moment longer he stared at Johnny.
Then he yelled shrilly, He is still alive. Sali, come quickly, he is still alive. Cheng; disappeared from the doorway and ran down the verandah still shouting for the poacher. Sali, come quickly. It was all over, and Johnny knew it. Only seconds remaining to him. He rolled on his side reached out and snatched up the register sheet. He pressed the sheet flat on the floor with one hand, and then released the severed artery and drew his blooddrenched hand out of the front of his trousers.
Immediately he felt the artery begin to pulse and fresh blood jetted from the wound.
With his forefinger he scrawled on the blank sheet of paper, writing in his own blood. He formed the letter N in a large lopsided character, and dizziness made his senses swirl. and It was more difficult to concentrate. The down stroke of the I was elongated and curved, too much like a J. Painfully he dotted the letter to Make its meaning clearer.
For a moment his finger was glued lightly to the paper with his sticky blood. He pulled it free.
He started on the second N. It was crude and childlike. His finger would not follow the dictates of his mind. He heard the ambassador still calling for Sali, and the poacher's answering shout filled with alarm and consternation. NIN, Johnny began the G but his finger wandered off at an angle and the wet red letters wiggled and swam before his eyes like tadpoles.
He heard running feet come pounding down the verandah and Sali's voice. I thought he was dead. I finish him good now! Johnny crumpled the sheet of paper in his left hand, the hand that was clean of blood, and be thrust his closed fist into the front of his tunic and rolled over onto his belly with his arm trapped under him, concealing the balled note.