They reached the bank and Bruce’s question was answered as they looked down on to the narrow beach.
There were the black remains of a dozen cooking fires along the water’s edge, and closer to the high bank were two crude structures of poles. For a moment their purpose puzzled Bruce and then he realized what they were. He had seen those crosspieces suspended between two uprights often before in hunting camps throughout Africa. They were paunching racks! At intervals along the crosspieces were the hark ropes that had been used to string up the game, heels first, with head and forelegs dangling and belly bulging forward so that at the long abdominal stroke of the knife the viscera would drop out easily.
But the game they had butchered on these racks were men, his men.
He counted the hanging ropes. There were ten of them, so no one had escaped.
“Cover me, Ruffy. I’m going down to have a look.” It was a penance Bruce was imposing upon himself. They were his men, and he had left them there.
“Okay, boss.” Bruce clambered down the well-defined path to the beach. Now the smell was almost unbearable and he found the source of
it. Between the racks lay a dark shapeless mass. It moved with flies; its surface moved, trembled, crawled with flies. Suddenly, humming, they lifted in a cloud from the pile of human debris, and then settled once more upon it.
A single fly buzzed round Bruce’s head and then settled on his hand. Metallic blue body, wings cocked back, it crouched on his skin and gleefully rubbed its front legs together. Bruce’s throat and stomach convulsed as he began to retch. He struck at the fly and it
darted away.
There were bones scattered round the cooking fires and a skull lay near his feet, split open to yield its contents.
Another spasm took Bruce and this time the vomit came up into his mouth, acid and warm. He swallowed it, turned away and scrambled up the bank to where Ruffy waited. He stood there gasping, suppressing his nausea until at last he could speak.
“All right, that’s all I wanted to know,” and he led the way back to the circle of vehicles.
Bruce sat on the bonnet of the Ranchero and sucked hard on his cigarette, trying to get the taste of death from his mouth.
“They probably swam downstream during the night and climbed the supports of the bridge. Kanaki and his boys wouldn’t have known anything about it until they came over the sides.” He drew on the cigarette again and trickled the smoke out of his nostrils, fumigating
the back of his throat and his nasal passages. “I should have thought of that. I should have warned Kanaki of that.”
“You mean they ate all ten of them - Jesus!” even Wally Hendry was impressed. “I’d like to have a look at that beach.
It must be quite something.”
“Good!” Bruce’s voice was suddenly
harsh. “I’ll put you in charge of the burial squad. You can go down there and clean it up before we start work on the bridge.” And Wally did not argue.
“You want me to do it now?” he asked.
“No,” snapped Bruce. “You and Ruffy are going to take two of the trucks back to Port Reprieve and fetch the materials we need to repair the bridge.” They both looked at Bruce with rising delight.
“I never thought of that,” said Wally.
“There’s plenty of roofing timber in the hotel and the office block,” grinned Ruffy.
“Nails,” said Wally as though he were making a major contribution.
“We’ll need nails.” Bruce cut through their comments. “It’s two o’clock now. You can get back to Port Reprieve by nightfall, collect the material tomorrow morning and return here by the evening. Take those two trucks there. - check to see they’re full of gas and you’ll
need about fifteen men.
Say, five gendarmes, in case of trouble, and ten of those civilians.”
“That should be enough,” agreed Ruffy.
“Bring a couple of dozen sheets of corrugated iron back with you.
We’ll use them to make a shield to protect us from arrows while we’re working.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” They settled the details, picked men to go back, loaded the trucks, worked them out of the laager, and
Bruce watched them disappear down the road towards Port Reprieve. An ache started deep behind his eyes and suddenly he was very tired, drained of energy by too little sleep, by the heat and by the emotional pace of the last four days.
He made one last circuit of the laager, checking the defences, chatting for a few minutes with his gendarmes and then he stumbled to the Ford, slid on to the front seat, laid his helmet and rifle aside, lowered his head on to his arms and was instantly asleep.
Shermaine woke him after dark with food unheated from the cans and a bottle of Ruffy’s beer.
“I’m sorry, Bruce, we have no fire to cook upon. It is very unappetizing and the beer is warm.” Bruce sat up and rubbed his eyes.
Six hours” sleep had helped; they were less swollen and inflamed. The headache was still there.
“I’m not really hungry, thank you. It’s this heat.”
“You must eat, Bruce. Try just a little,” and then she smiled. “At least you are more gallant after having rested. It is
“Thank you” now, instead of
“Keep quiet and stay out of the way”.” Ruefully Bruce grimaced.
“You are one of those women with a built-in recording unit; every word remembered and used in evidence against a man later.” Then he touched her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I like your apologies, mon capitaine. They are like the rest of you, completely
masculine. There is nothing about you which is not male, sometimes almost overpoweringly so.” Impishly she watched his eyes; he knew she was talking about the little scene on the train that Wally Hendry had interrupted.
“Let’s try this food,” he said, and then a little later, “not bad - you are an excellent cook.”
“This time the credit must go to Mr. Heinz-and his fifty-seven children. But one day I shall make for you one of my tournedos all Prince. It is my special.”
“Speciality,” Bruce corrected her automatically.
The murmur of voices within the laager was punctuated occasionally by a burst of laughter. There was a feeling of relaxation. The canvas roof and the wall of vehicles gave security to them all. Men lay in
dark huddles of sleep or talked quietly in small groups.
Bruce scraped the metal plate and filled his mouth with the last
of the food.
“Now I must check the defences again.”
“Oh, Bonaparte. It is always duty.” Shermaine sighed with resignation.
“I will not be long.”
“And I’ll wait here for you.” Bruce picked up his rifle and helmet, and was half-way out of the Ford when out in the jungle the drum started.
“Bruce!” whispered Shermaine and clutched his arm. The voices round them froze into a fearful silence, and the drum beat in the night. It had a depth and resonance that you could feel, the warm
sluggish air quivered with it. Not fixed in space but filling it, beating monotonously, insistently, like the pulse of all creation.
“Bruce!” whispered Shermaine again; she was trembling and the fingers on his arm dug into his flesh with the strength of terror. It steadied his own leap of fear.
“Baby, baby,” he soothed her, taking her to his chest and holding her there. “It’s only the sound of two pieces of wood being knocked together by a naked savage. They can’t touch us here, you know that.”
“Oh, Bruce, it’s horrible - it’s like bells, funeral bells.”
“That’s silly talk.” Bruce held her at arm’s length. “Come with me. Help me calm down these others, they’ll be terrified. You’ll have to help me.”