Ruffy.
“Three-hour watches tonight, Sergeant Major. Lieutenant Haig will
take the first, then Lieutenant Hendry, then Lieutenant de Surrier, and
I’ll do the dawn spell.”
“Okay, boss. I’d better make sure my boys aren’t sleeping.” He left the compartment and the broken glass from the corridor windows crunched under his boots.
“I’ll be on my way also.” Mike stood up and pulled the ground sheet over his shoulders.
“Don’t waste the batteries of the searchlights, Mike.
Sweep every ten minutes or so.”
“Okay, Bruce.” Mike looked across at Hendry. “I’ll call you at nine o’clock.”
“Jolly good show, old fruit.” Wally exaggerated Mike’s accent. “Good hunting, what!” and then as Mike left the compartment, “Silly old bugger, why does he have to talk like that?” No one answered him, and he pulled up his shirt behind.
“Andre what’s this on my back?”
“It’s a pimple.”
“Well, squeeze it then.” Bruce woke in the night, sweating, with the mosquitoes whining about his face. Outside it was still raining and occasionally the reflected light from the searchlight on the roof of the coach lit the interior dimly.
On one of the bottom bunks Mike Haig lay on his back.
His face was shining with sweat and he lolled his head from side to side on the pillow. He was grinding his teeth - a sound to which
Bruce had become accustomed, and he preferred it to Hendry’s snores.
“You poor old bugger,” whispered Bruce.
From the bunk opposite, Andre de Surrier whimpered.
In sleep he looked like a child with dark soft hair falling over his forehead.
The sun was hot before it cleared the horizon. It lifted a warm mist from the dripping forest. and the rain petered out in the dawn.
As they ran north the forest thickened, the trees grew closer together and the undergrowth beneath them was coarser than it had been around
Elisabethville.
Through the warm misty dawn Bruce saw the water tower at Msapa
junction rising like a lighthouse above the forest, its silver paint streaked with brown rust. Then they came round the last curve in the tracks and the little settlement huddled before them.
It was small, half a dozen buildings in all, and there was about it the desolate aspect of human habitation reverting to jungl. Beside the tracks stood the water tower and the raised concrete coal bins.
Then the station buildings of wood and iron, with the large sign above the verandah:
MSAPA JUNCTION. Elevation 963m.
There was an avenue of casia flora trees with very dark green foliage and orange flowers; and beyond that, on the edge of the forest, a row of cottages.
One of the cottages had been burned, its ruins were fire blackened
and tumbled; and the gardens had lost all sense of discipline with three months’neglect.
“Driver, stop beside the water tower. You have fifteen minutes to fill your boiler.”
“Thank you, monsieur.” With a heavy sigh of steam the loco pulled up beside the tower.
“Haig, take four men and go back to give the driver a hand.”
“Okay, Bruce.” Bruce turned once more to the radio.
“Hendry.”
“Hello there.”
“Get a patrol together, six men, and search those cottages. Then take a look at the edge of the bush, we don’t want any unexpected visitors.” Wally Hendry waved an acknowledgement from the leading truck, and Bruce went on: “Put de
Surrier on.” He watched Hendry pass the set to Andre
“De Surner, you are in charge of the leading trucks in Hendry’s absence. Keep Hendry covered, but watch the bush behind you also. They could come from there.” Bruce switched off the set and turned to Ruffy. “Stay up here
on the roof, Ruffy. I’m going to chase them up with the watering. If you see anything, don’t write me a postcard, start pooping off.” Ruffy nodded. “Have some breakfast to take with you.” He proffered an open bottle of beer.
“Better than bacon and eggs.” Bruce accepted the bottle and climbed down on to the platform. Sipping the beer he walked back along the train and looked up at Mike and the engine driver in the tower.
“Is it empty?” he called up at them.
“Half full, enough for a bath if you want one,” answered Mike.
“Don’t tempt me.” The idea was suddenly very attractive, for he could smell his own stale body odour and his eyelids were itchy and swollen from mosquito bites. “My kingdom for a bath.” He ran his fingers over his jowls and they rasped over stiff beard.
He watched them swing the canvas hose out over the loco. The chubby little engine driver clambered up and sat astride the boiler as
he fitted the hose.
A shout behind him made Bruce turn quickly, and he saw Hendry’s patrol coming back from the cottages. They were dragging two small prisoners with them.
“Hiding in the first cottage,” shouted Hendry. “They tried to leg it into the bush.” He prodded one of them with his bayonet. The child cried out and twisted in the hands of the gendarme who held her.
“Enough of that.” Bruce stopped him from using the bayonet again and went to meet them. He looked at the two children.
The girl was close to puberty with breasts like insect bites just starting to show, thin-legged with enlarged kneecaps out of proportion to her thighs and calves. She wore only a dirty piece of trade cloth drawn up between her legs and secured around her waist by a length of bark string, and the tribal tattoo marks across her chest and cheeks and forehead stood proud in ridges of scar tissue.
“Ruffy.” Bruce called him down from the coach. “Can you speak to them?” Ruffy picked up the boy and held him on his hip. He was younger than the girl - seven, perhaps eight years old. Very dark-skinned and completely naked, as naked as the terror on his face.
Ruffy grunted sharply and the gendarme released the girl.
She stood trembling, making no attempt to escape.
Then in a soothing rumble Ruffy began talking to the boy on his hip; he smiled as he spoke and stroked the child’s head. Slowly a little of the fear melted and the boy answered in a piping treble that
Bruce could not understand.
“What does he say?” urged Bruce.
“He thinks we’re going to eat them,” laughed Ruffy. “Not enough
here for a decent breakfast.” He patted the skinny little arm, grey with crushed filth, then he gave an order to one of the gendarmes. The man disappeared into the coach and came back with a handful of chocolate bars. Still talking, Ruffy peeled one of them and placed it in the boy’s mouth. The child’s eyes widened appreciatively at the taste and he chewed quickly, his eyes on Ruffy’s face, his answers now muffled with chocolate.
At last Ruffy turned to Bruce.
“No trouble here, boss. They come from a small village about an hour’s walk away. just five or six families, and no war party. These kids sneaked across to have a look at the houses, pinch what they could perhaps, but that’s all.” “How many men at this village?” asked Bruce, and Ruffy turned back to the boy. In reply to the question he held up the fingers of both hands, without interrupting the chewing.
“Does he know if the line is clear through to Port Reprieve? Have they burnt the bridges or torn up the tracks?” Both children were dumb to this question. The boy swallowed the last of his chocolate and looked hungrily at Ruffy, who filled his mouth again.
“Jesus,” muttered Hendry with deep disgust. “Is this a creche or something. Let’s all play ring around the roses.”
“Shut up,” snapped
Bruce, and then to Ruffy, “Have they seen any soldiers?” Two heads shaken in solemn unison.
“Have they seen any war parties of their own people?” Again solemn negative.