There was an elitist streak in Craig's make-up that hated to see a Gulliver rendered impotent by Lilliputians.
He loathed the politics of envy and the viciousness of socialism which, he felt, sought to strike down the heroes and reduce every exceptional man to the common greyness of the pack, to replace true leadership with the oafish mumblings of trade-union louts, to emasculate all initiative by punitive tax schemes and then gradually to shepherd a numbed and compliant populace into the barbed-wire enclosure of Marxist totalitarianism.
These men were terrorists certainly. Craig grinned.
Robin Hood was also a terrorist but at least he had some style and a little class.
"Will you see Comrade Tungata?" they demanded with almost pitiful eagerness.
"Yes. I will see him soon."
"Tell him we are here. Tell him we are ready and waiting." Craig nodded. "I will tell him." They walked back with him to where he had left the Volkswagen, and Comrade Dollar insisted on carrying Craig's pack. When they reached the dusty and slightly battered VW, they piled into it with AK 47 barrels protruding from three windows.
"We will go with you," Lookout explained, "as far as the main Victoria Falls Road, for if you should meet another of our patrols when you are alone, it might go hard for you.) They reached the macadamized Great North Road well after darkness had fallen. Craig stripped his pack and gave them what remained of his rations and the dregs of the whisky. He had two hundred dollars in his wallet and he added that to the booty. Then they shook hands.
"Tell Comrade Tungata we need weapons, "said Dollar.
"Tell him that, more than weapons, we need a leader." Comrade Lookout gave Craig the special grip of thumb and palm reserved for trusted friends. "Go in peace, Kuphela," he said. "Mat the leg that walks alone carry you far and swiftly." 4 "Stay in peace, "my friend, "Craig told him.
"No, Kuphela, rather wish me bloody war!" Lookout's scarred visage twisted into a dreadful grin in the reflected headlights.
When Craig looked back, they had disappeared into the darkness as silently as hunting leopards.
-, 4-A
wouldn't have taken any bets about seeing you again," Jock Daniels greeted Craig when he walked into the auctioneer's office the next morning. "Did you make it up to the Chizarira or did good sense get the better of you?" I'm still alive, aren't ! Craig evaded the direct question.
"Good boy, "Jock nodded. "No sense messing with those Matabele shufta bandits the lot of them."
"Did you hear from Zarich?" Jock shook his head. "Only sent the telex at nine o'clock local time. They are an hour behind us."
"Can I use your telephone? A few private calls?"
"Local? I don't want you chatting up your birds in New York at my expense."
"Of course."
"Right as long as you mind the shop for me, while I'm out." Craig installed himself at Jock's desk, and consulted the cryptic notes that he had made from Henry Pickering's file.
His first call was to the American Embassy in Harare, the capital three hundred miles north-east of Bulawayo.
"Mr. Morgan Oxford, your cultural attache, please," he asked the operator.
"Oxford." The accent was crisp Boston and Ivy League.
"Craig Mellow. A mutual friend asked me to call you and give you his regards."
"Yes, I was expecting you. Won't you come in here any time and say hello?"
"I'd enjoy that," Craig told him, and hung up.
Henry Pickering was as good as his word. Any message handed to Oxford would go out in the diplomatic bag, and be on Pickering's desk within twelve hours.
His next call was to the office of the minister of tourism and information, and he finally got through to the minister's secretary. Her attitude changed to warm co-operation when he spoke to her in Sindebele.
"The comrade minister is in Harare for the sitting of Parliament," she told him, and gave Craig his private number at the House.
Craig got through to a parliamentary secretary on his fourth attempt. The telephone system had slowly begun deteriorating, he noticed. The blight of all developing countries was lack of skilled artisans; prior to independence all linesmen had been white, and since then most of them had taken the gap.
This secretary was Mashona and insisted on speaking English as proof of her sophistication.
"Kindly state the nature of the business to be discussed." She was obviously reading from a printed form.
"Personal. I am acquainted with the comrade minister."
"Ah yes. P-e-r-s-o-n-n-e-l." The secretary spelled it out laboriously as she wrote it.
"No that's p-e-r-s-o-n-a-I," Craig corrected her patiently. He was beginning to adjust to the pace of Africa again.
"I will consult the comrade minister's schedule. You will be obliged to telephone again." Craig consulted his list. Next was the government registrar of companies, and this time he was lucky. He was put through to an efficiiInt and helpful clerk who made a note of his requirem%nts.
"The Share Register, Articles and Memorandum of Association of the company trading as Rholands Ltd, formerly known as Rhodesian Lands and Mining Ltd." He heard the disapproval in the clerk's tone of voice. "Rhodesian" was a dirty word nowadays, and Craig made a mental resolution to change the company's name, if ever he had the power to do so. "Zimlands" would sound a lot better to an African ear.