“Very probably there are Baluba in the bush’- he pointed at the banks -‘watching us at this moment. They might get the same idea. I
wonder if I should leave a guard here?” Mike leaned on the rail beside him and they both stared out to where the river took a bend two hundred yards downstream; in the crook of the bend grew a tree twice as tall as any of its neighbours. The trunk was straight and covered with smooth silvery bark and its foliage piled to a high green steeple against the clouds. It was the natural point of focus for their eyes as they weighed the problem.
“I wonder what kind of tree that is. I’ve never seen one like it before.” Bruce was momentarily diverted by the grandeur of it. “It looks like a giant blue gum.”
“It’s quite a sight,” Mike concurred.
“I’d like to go down and have a closer,-” Then suddenly he stiffened and there was an edge of alarm in his voice as he pointed.
“Bruce, there! What’s that in the lower branches?”
“Where?” Just above the first fork, on the left-” Mike was pointing and suddenly
Bruce saw it. For a second he thought it was a leopard, then he realized it was too dark and long.
“It’s a man,” exclaimed Mike.
“Baluba,” snapped Bruce; he could see the shape now and the sheen
of naked black flesh, the kilt of animal tails and the headdress of feathers. A long bow stood up behind the man’s shoulder as he balanced on the branch and steadied himself with one hand against the trunk. He was watching them.
Bruce glanced round at the train. Hendry had noticed their agitation and, following the direction of Mike’s raised arm, he had spotted the Baluba. Bruce realized what Hendry was going to do and he
opened his mouth to shout, but before he could do so Hendry had snatched his rifle off his shoulder, swung it up and fired a long, rushing, hammering burst.
1 “The trigger-happy idiot,” snarled Bruce and looked back at the tree. Stabs of white bark were flying from the trunk and the bullets reaped leaves that fluttered down like crippled insects, but the Baluba had disappeared.
The gunfire ceased abruptly and in its place Hendry was shouting with hoarse excitement.
“I got him, I got the bastard.”
“Hendry!” Bruce’s voice was also hoarse, but with anger, “Who ordered you to fire?”
“He was a bloody
Baluba, a mucking big bloody Baluba.
Didn’t you see him, hey? Didn’t you see him, man?”
“Come here, Hendry.”
“I got the bastard,” rejoiced Hendry.
“Are you deaf? Come here!” While Hendry climbed down from the truck and came towards them Bruce asked Haig:
“Did he hit him?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so, I think he jumped. If he had been hit he’d have been thrown backwards, you know how it knocks them over.” “Yes,” said Bruce, “I know.” A .300 bullet from an FN struck with a force of well over a ton. When you hit a man there was no doubt about it. All right, so the Baluba was still in there.
Hendry came up, swaggering, laughing with excitement.
“So you killed him, hey?” Bruce asked.
“Stone dead, stone bloody deadv “Can you see him?”
“No, he’s down in the bush.”
“Do you want to go and have a look at him, Hendry? Do you want to go and get his ears?” Ears are the best trophy you can take
from a man, not as good as the skin of a blackmaned lion or the great bossed hams of a buffalo, but better than the scalp. The woolly cap of an
African scalp is a drab thing, messy to take and difficult to cure.
You have to salt it and stretch it inside out over a helmet; even then it smells badly. Ears are much less trouble and Hendry was an avid collector. He was not the only one in the army of Katanga; the taking of ears was common practice.
“Yeah, I want them.” Hendry detached the bayonet from the muzzle of his rifle. “I’ll nip down and get them.”
“You can’t let anyone go in there, Bruce. Not even him,” protested Haig quietly.
“Why not? He deserves it, he worked hard for it.”
“Only take a minute.” Hendry ran his thumb along the bayonet to test the edge. My
God! He really means it, thought Bruce; he’d go into that tangled stuff for a pair of ears - he’s not brave, he’s just stupendously lacking in imagination.
“Wait for me, Bruce, it won’t take long.” Hendry started back.
“You’re not serious, Bruce?” Mike asked.
“No,” agreed Bruce, “I’m not serious,” and his voice was cold and hard as he caught hold of Hendry’s shoulder and stopped him.
“Listen to me! You have no more chances - that was it.
I’m waiting for you now, Hendry. just once more, that’s all.
Just once more.” Hendry’s face turned sullen again.
“Don’t push me, Bucko.”
“Get back to the train and bring it across,” said Bruce contemptuously and turned to Haig.
“Now we’ll have to leave a guard here. They know we’ve gone across and they’ll burn it for a certainty, especially after that little
fiasco.”
“Who are you going to leave?”
“Ten men, say, under a sergeant.
We’ll be back by nightfall or tomorrow morning at the latest. They should be safe enough. I doubt there is a big war party here, a few strays perhaps, but the main force will be closer to the town.”
“I hope you’re right.” “So do I” said Bruce absently, his mind busy with the problem of defending the bridge. “We’ll strip all the sand” bags off the coaches and build an emplacement here in the middle of the roadway, leave two of the battery-operated searchlights and a case of flares with them, one of the Brens and a couple of cases of grenades. Food and water for a week. No, they’ll be all right.” The train was rolling down slowly towards them - and a single arrow rose from the edge of the jungle. Slowly it rose, curving in flight and falling towards the train, dropping faster now, silently into the mass of men in the leading truck.
So Hendry had missed and the Baluba had come up stream through the thick bush to launch his arrow in retaliation. Bruce sprang to the guard rail and, using it as a rest for his rifle, opened up in short bursts, searching the green mass and seeing it tremble with his bullets. Haig was shooting also, hunting the area from which the arrow had come.
The train was up to them now and Bruce slung his rifle over his shoulder and scrambled up the side of the truck.
He pushed his way to the radio set.
Driver, stop the covered coaches in the middle of the bridge,” he snapped, and then he switched it off and looked for Ruffy.
“Sergeant Major, get all those sandbags off the roof into the roadway.” While they worked, the gendarmes would be protected from further arrows by the body of the train.
“Okay, boss.” va
“Kanaki.” Bruce picked his most reliable sergeant. “I am leaving you here with ten men to hold the bridge for us.
Take one of the Brens, and two of the lights.—” Quickly Bruce issued his orders and then he had time to ask Andre: “What happened to that arrow? Was anyone hit?”
“No, missed by a few inches. Here it is.”
“That was a bit of luck.” Bruce took the arrow from Andre and inspected it quickly. A light reed, crudely fletched with green leaves and with the iron head bound into it with a strip of rawhide. It
looked fragile and ineffectual, but the barbs of the head were smeared thickly with a dark paste that had dried like toffee.
“Pleasant,” murmured Bruce, and then he shuddered slightly. He could imagine it embedded in his body with the poison purple-staining the flesh beneath the skin. He had heard that it was not a comfortable death, and the irontipped reed was suddenly malignant and repulsive.