He snapped it in half and threw it out over the side of the bridge before he jumped down from the truck to supervise the building of the guard post.
“Not enough sandbags, boss.”
“Take the mattresses off all the
bunks, Ruffy.” Bruce solved that quickly. The leather-covered coir pallets would stop an arrow with ease.
Fifteen minutes later the post was completed, a shoulder-high ring of sandbags and mattresses large enough to accommodate ten men and
their equipment, with embrasures sited to command both ends of the bridge.
“We’ll be back early tomorrow, Kanaki. Let none of your men leave this post for any purpose; the gaps between the timbers are sufficient for purposes of sanitation.”
“We shall enjoy enviable comfort, Captain.
But we will lack that which soothes.” Kanaki grinned meaningly at
Bruce.
“Ruffy, leave them a case of beer.”
“A whole case?” Ruffy made no attempt to hide his shocked disapproval of such a prodigal order.
“Is my credit not good?”
“You credit is okay, boss,” and then he changed to French to make his protest formal. “My concern is the replacement of such a valuable commodity.”
“You’re wasting time, Ruffy!
from the bridge it was thirty miles to Port Reprieve.
They met the road(] again six miles outside the town; it crossed under them and disappeared into the forest again to circle out round the high ground taking the easier route into Port Reprieve. But the railroad climbed up the hills in a series of traverses and came out at the top six hundred feet above the town. On the stony slopes the forest found meagre purchase and the vegetation was sparser; it did not obscure the view.
Standing on the roof Bruce looked out across the Lufira swamps to the north, a vastness of poisonous green swamp grass and open water, disappearing into the blue heat haze without any sign of ending. From its southern extremity it was drained by the Lufira river. The river was half a mile wide, deep olive-green, ruffled darker by eddies of
wind across its surface, fenced into the very edge of the water by a solid barrier of dense river bush. In the angle formed by the swamp and the river was a headland which protected the natural harbour of
Port Reprieve. The town was on a spit of land, the harbour on one side and a smaller swamp on the other. The road came round the right-hand side of the hills, crossed a causeway over the swamp and entered the single street of the town from the far side.
There were three large buildings in the centre of the town opposite the railway yard, their iron roofs bright beacons in the sunlight; and clustered round them were perhaps fifty smaller thatched dwellings.
Down on the edge of the harbour was a long shed, obviously a workshop, and two jetties ran into the water.
The diamond dredgers were moored alongside; three of them, ungainly black hulks with high superstructures and blunt ends.
It was a place of heat and fever and swamp smells, an ugly little village by a green reptile river.
“Nice place to retire,” Mike Haig grunted.
“Or open a health resort,” said Bruce.
Beyond the causeway, on the main headland, there was another cluster of buildings, just the tops were showing above the forest.
Among them rose the copper-clad spire of a church.
“Mission station,” guessed Bruce.
“St. Augustine’s,” agreed Ruffy. “My first wife’s little brudder got himself educated there. He’s an attache to the ministry of something or other in Elisabethville now, doing damn good for himself.”
Boasting a little.
“Bully for him,” said Bruce.
The train had started angling down the hills towards the town.
“Well, I reckon we’ve made it, boss.”
“I reckon also; all we have to do is get back again.”
“Yes sir, I
reckon that’s all.” And they ran into the town.
There were more than forty people in the crowd that lined the platform to welcome them.
We’ll have a heavy load on the way home, thought Bruce as he ran his eye over them. He saw the bright spots of women’s dresses in the throng. Bruce counted four of them. That’s another complication; one day I hope I find something in this life that turns out exactly as expected, something that will run smoothly and evenly through to its right and logical conclusion. Some hope, he decided, some bloody hope.
The joy and relief of the men and women on the platform was pathetically apparent in their greetings. Most of the women were crying and the men ran beside the train like small boys as it slid in along the raised concrete platform.
All of them were of mixed blood, Bruce noted. They varied in colour from creamy yellow to charcoal. The Belgians had certainly left
much to be remembered by.
Standing back from the throng, a little aloof from the general jollification, was a half-blooded Belgian. There was an air of authority about him that was unmistakable. On one side of him stood a large bosomy woman of his own advanced age, darker skinned than he was; but Bruce saw immediately that she was his wife. At his other hand stood a figure dressed in a white open-necked shirt and blue jeans that
Bruce at first thought was a boy, until the head turned and he saw the long plume of dark hair that hung down her back, and the unmanly double pressure beneath the white shirt.
The train stopped and Bruce jumped down on to the platform and
laughingly pushed his way through the crowds towards the Belgian.
Despite a year in the Congo, Bruce had not grown accustomed to being kissed by someone who had not shaved for two or three days and who smelled strongly of garlic and cheap tobacco. This atrocity was committed upon him a dozen times or more. before he arrived before the
Belgian.
“The Good Lord bless you for coming to our aid, Monsieur Captain.”
The Belgian recognized the twin bars on the front of Bruce’s helmet and
held out his hand. Bruce had expected another kiss, so he accepted the handshake with relief.
“I am only glad that we are in time,” he answered.
“May I introduce myself - Martin Boussier, district manager of
Union Miniere Corporation, and this is my wife, Madame Boussier.” He was a tall man, but unlike his wife, sparsely fleshed. His hair was completely silver and his skin folded, toughened and browned by a life under the equatorial sun. Bruce took an instant liking to him. Madame
Boussier pressed her bulk against Bruce and kissed him heartily. Her mustache was too soft to cause him discomfort and she smelled of toilet soap, which was a distinct improvement, decided Bruce.
“May I also present Madame Cartier,” and for the first time Bruce looked squarely at the girl. A number of things registered in his mind simultaneously: the paleness of her skin which was not unhealthy but had an opaque coolness which he wanted to touch, the size of her eyes which seemed to fill half her face, the unconscious provocation of her lips, and the use of the word Madame before her name.
“Captain Curry - of the Katanga Army,” said Bruce. She’s too young to be married, can’t be more than seventeen.
She’s still got that little girl freshness about her and I bet she smells like an unweaned puppy.
“Thank you for coming, monsieur.” She had a throatiness in her voice as though she were just about to laugh or to make love, and Bruce added three years to his estimate of her age. That was not a little girl’s voice, nor were those little girl’s legs in the jeans, and little girls had less under their shirt fronts.
His eyes came back to her face and he saw that there was colour in her cheeks now and sparks of annoyance in her eyes.