Juggernaut

Several of us were waiting for whatever Brad Bishop could offer as an evening meal. Making idle conversation, I mentioned Atheridge's theory about the new role of the rig as a fetish, and Wingstead was fascinated. I could see him formulating an article for some truckers' magazine. Burns' attitude was very different and typical of him.

'More like rats,' he said when I invoked the Pied Piper image. 'Little brown bastards, eating up everything that isn't nailed down. Probably carrying disease too.' I felt a strong desire to hit him. Wingstead got up and walked away.

After a strained silence Burns spoke again. 'How come you work for a limey outfit?' He seemed to enjoy baiting me.

'Good pay,' I said briefly.

He snorted. 'For pushing this thing along?'

'Good enough,' I said. He seemed to have got the notion that I was a transport man and I didn't bother to disillusion him. It wasn't worth the trouble, and in any case right now it was nearer the truth than otherwise.

'What do you do with Lat-Am?' I asked him.

'I'm a tool pusher. Harry here's a shooter.'

'Come again? I don't know oil jargon.'

Zimmerman laughed. 'Russ is a drilling superintendent. Me, I make loud bangs in oil wells. Blasting.'

'Been in Nyala long?' I didn't take to Burns but Zimmerman was a much more likeable man. They made an odd pair.

'A while. Six months or so. We were based in Bir Oassa but we went down to the coast to take a look. The desert country's better. We should have stayed up there.'

'You can say that again,' Burns said, 'then we'd be out of this crummy mess.'

'I was up in Bir Oassa earlier this month,' I said. 'Didn't have much time to look at the oilfields, though. How you doing there?'

'We brought in three,' Zimmerman said. 'Good sweet oil, low sulphur; needs no doctor at all. Lat-Am isn't doing badly on this one.'

'What about the war, though?'

Burns shrugged. That's no skin off Lat-Am's ass. We'll stop pumping, that's all. The oil's still in the ground and we've got the concession. Whoever wins the war will need us.'

It was a point of view, I suppose.

They talked then between themselves for a while, using oilfield jargon which I understood better than I'd let on. Burns appealed to me less and less; he was a guy for whom the word chauvinist might have been invented. Texas was Paradise and the Alamo was the navel of the earth; he might grudgingly concede that California wasn't bad, but the East Coast was full of goddamn liberals and Jews and longhaired hippies. You might as well be in Europe, where everyone was effete and decadent. Still, the easterners were at least American and he could get along with them if he had to. The rest of the world was divided between commies, niggers, Ayrabs and gooks, and fit only for plundering for oil.

The next day we arrived at Makara. It was no bigger than other villages we'd passed through, but it earned its place on the map because of the bridge which spanned the river there. Further west, near Lake Pirie where the river joined the huge Katali there was a delta, and building a bridge would not have been possible. Our first concern was to find out whether the river was passable, and Sadiq, Kemp and I went ahead of the convoy to take a look. To our relief the bridge stood firm and was fit for crossing.

We halted outside the village and sent off another scouting party to investigate the cotton warehouses. Word came back that they were intact, empty and serviceable as a hospital, and so we moved to the cotton factory and camped there. Apart from the grave faces of the local people there was no sign of trouble anywhere.

That was the last good thing that happened that day.

Dr Katabisirua came to look at the warehouses and arranged for some Nyalan women to give the largest a clean through before bringing in the patients, which he wouldn't do until the next day. 'My nurses are tired from the journey,' he said, 'and that is when mistakes are made.'

He was very despondent. Two more burn patients had died and he feared for one of the new born babies. Some of the wounded were not improving as he would wish. 'And now Sister Ursula tells me we have no more Ringer's lactate.'

'What's that?'

'A replacement for lost plasma. We have no substitute.' There was no hospital closer than Lasulu, and that was as far away as the moon. He also fretted about Sister Mary who was sinking into frail senility under the stress.

By the end of our talk I was even more depressed than he was. There wasn't a thing I could do for him or his patients, and I was profoundly frustrated by my helplessness. Never before in my adult life had I been unable to cope with a situation, and it galled me.

Burns, passing by, said casually, 'Hey, Mannix, the coon captain wants you,' and walked on.

'Burns!'

He looked back over his shoulder. 'Yes?'

'Come here.'

He swung back. 'You got a beef?'

I said, This morning Captain Sadiq persuaded his superior officer to let him stay with this convoy. He put his career on the line for us. What's more, over the past few days he's worked harder than you could in a month, and a damned sight more willingly. Around here you'll speak respectfully of and to him. Got the idea?'

Touchy, aren't you?' he said.

'Yes I am. Don't push me, Burns.'

'What the hell do you want from me?' he asked.

I sighed, letting my neck muscles relax. 'You will not refer to the Captain as a coon or a nigger. Nor his soldiers, nor any other Nyalans, come to that. We're fed up with it.'

'Why should I take orders from you?' he asked.

I said, 'Because right now I'm top man around here. As long as you're with us you do what I say, and if you don't toe the line you'll be out on your can. And you won't hold a job with Lat-Am or any other oil company after this is over. If you don't think I can swing that then you just ask Mister Kemp.'

I turned my back and walked away, seething. If I'd been near him much longer I couldn't have kept my hands off him, which wouldn't have solved any problems. I passed a couple of staring men and then McGrath was beside me, speaking softly.

'Need any help, Mannix?'

'No,' I said curtly. McGrath stuck in my craw too.

'I'll be around if you do.' He returned to his job.

I recalled that the reason for this outburst had been that Captain Sadiq wanted a word, and I set about finding him. It was a routine matter he wanted settled. After our business was over I pointed to the milling flock of Nyalans around the camp.

'Captain, how many of them are there?' I asked.

'Perhaps two hundred, Mister Mannix. But they do not stay with us for long. It is only that there are always more of them.'

'Yes, I've noticed that. I understand they've attached themselves to the rig, made some sort of mascot of it. Do you know anything about it?'

'I am of Islam,' he said. 'These people have different ideas from you and me. But they are not savages, Mister Mannix. Perhaps it is no more than the thing Mister Lang hangs in the cab of his tractor. It is a lucky charm.'

'That's a rabbit's foot. I see what you mean,' I said, impressed by his logic. 'Just a bigger talisman than usual. But I'm worried about them. Are they getting enough food and water? What if a real sickness strikes among them? What can we do to stop them, make them return to their homes?'

'I do not think anything will stop them, sir. They manage for food, and none will walk further than he can achieve. For each of them, that is enough.'

One thing it ensured was a redistribution of the local population, a reshuffle of families, genes and customs; perhaps not altogether a bad thing. But it was a hell of a way to go about it. And suppose ill fortune should fall on these people while they were tailing us. Would they see their erstwhile lucky talisman becoming a force of evil instead, and if so what might they take it into their collective heads to do about it, and about us?