A good head, he noted mechanically, forty inches at least.
“Plenty of meat, Captain. Tonight we eat thick!” grinned one of his gendarmes as he bent over the huge body to begin flensing.
“Plenty,” agreed Bruce and turned back to the Ranchero.
In the heat of the kill it was a good feeling: the rifle’s kick and your stomach screwed up with excitement. But afterwards you felt a little bit dirtied; sad and guilty as you do after lying with a woman you do not love.
He climbed into the car and Shermaine sat away from him, withdrawn.
“They were so big and ugly - beautiful,” she said softly.
“We needed the meat. I didn’t kill them for fun.” But he thought with a little shame, I have killed many others for fun.
“Yes,” she agreed. “We needed the meat.” He turned the car off the road and signalled to the truck drivers to pull in behind him.
Later it was all right again. The meat-rich smoke from a dozen cooking fires drifted across the camp. The dark tree tops silhouetted against a sky full of stars, the friendly glow of the fires, and laughter, men’s voices raised, someone singing, the night noises of the bush insects and frogs in the nearby stream - a plate piled high with grilled fillets and slabs of liver, a bottle of beer from Rutty’s hoard, the air at last cooler, a small breeze to keep the mosquitoes
away, and Shermaine sitting beside him on the blankets.
Ruffy drifted across to them in one hand a stick loaded with meat from which the juice dripped and in the other hand a bottle held by the throat.
“How’s it for another beer, boss?”
“Enough.” Bruce held up his hand. “I’m full to the back teeth.”
“You’re getting old, that’s for sure. Me and the boys going to finish them buffalo or die trying.”
He squatted on his great. haunches and his tone changed. “The trucks are flat, boss. Reckon there’s not a bucketful of gas in the lot of them.”
“I want you to drain all the tanks, Ruffy, and pour it into the
Ford.” Ruffy nodded and bit a hunk of meat off the end of the stick.
“Then first thing tomorrow morning you and i will go on to Msapa in the Ranchero and leave everyone else here.
Lieutenant Hendry will be in charge.”
“You talking about me?”
wally came from one of the fires.
“Yes, I’m going to leave you in charge here while Ruffy and I go on to Msapa Junction to fetch help.” Bruce did not look at Hendry and he had difficulty keeping the loathing out of his voice. “Ruffy, fetch the map will you?” They spread it on the earth and huddled round it. Ruffy held the flashlight.
“I’d say we are about here.” Bruce touched the tiny black vein of the road. “About seventy, eighty miles to Msapa.” He ran his finger along it. “It will take us about five hours there and back. However, if the telegraph isn’t working we might have to go on until we meet a
patrol or find some other way of getting a message back to Elisabethville.” Almost parallel to the road and only two inches from it on the large-scale map ran the thick red line that marked r. Wally Hendry’s slitty eyes the Northern Rhodesian horde narrowed even further as he looked at it.
“Why not leave Ruffy here, and I’ll go with you.” Hendry looked up at Bruce.
I want Ruffy with me if we meet any ” Africans along the way.” Also, thought Bruce, I don’t want to be left on the side of
the road with a bullet in my head while you drive on to Elisabethville.
“Suits me,” grunted Hendry. He dropped his eyes to the map.
About forty miles to the border. A hard day’s walk.
ruce changed to French and spoke swiftly. “Ruffy, hide the
diamonds behind the dashboard of your truck. That way we are certain they will send a rescue party, even if we have to go to Elisabethville.”
“Talk English, Bucko,” growled Hendry, but Ruffy nodded and answered, also in French.
“I will leave Sergeant Jacque to guard them.” “NO!” said Bruce.
“Tell no one.”
“Cut it oud” rasped Hendry. “Anything you say I want to
hear.”
“We’ll leave at dawn tomorrow,” Bruce reverted to English.
“May I go with you?” Shermaine spoke for the first time.
“I don’t see why not.” Bruce smiled quickly at her, but Ruffy coughed awkwardly, “Reckon that’s not such a good idea, boss.”
“Why?”
Bruce turned on him with his temper starting to rise.
“Well, boss,” Ruffy hesitated, and then went on, “You, me and the lady all shoving off towards Elisabethville might not look so good to the boys. They might get ideas, think we’re not coming back or something.” Bruce was silent, considering it.
“That’s right,” Hendry cut in. “You might just take it into your head to keep going. Let her stay, sort of guarantee for the rest of us.”
“I don’t mind, Bruce. I didn’t think about it that way. I’ll stay.”
“She’ll have forty good boys looking after her, she’ll he all right,” Ruffy assured Bruce.
“All right then, that’s settled. It won’t be for long, Shermaine.”
“I’ll go and see about draining the trucks.” Ruffy stood up.
“See you in the morning, boss.”
“I’m going to get some more of that meat.” Wally picked up the map carelessly. “Try and get some sleep tonight, Curry. Not too much grumble and grunt.” In his exasperation, Bruce did not notice that Hendry had taken the map.
It rained in the early hours before the dawn and Bruce lay in the back of the Ranchero and listened to it drum on the metal roof. It was a lulling sound and a good feeling to lie warmly listening to the rain
with the woman you love in your arms.
He felt her waking against him, the change in her breathing and the first slow movements of her body.
There were buffalo steaks for breakfast, but no coffee.
They ate swiftly and then Bruce called across to Ruffy.
“Okay, Ruffy?”
“Let’s go, boss.” They climbed into the Ford and
Ruffy filled most of the seat beside Bruce. His helmet perched on the back of his head, rifle sticking Out through the space where the windscreen should have been, and two large feet planted securely on top of the case of beer on the floor.
Bruce twisted the key and the engine fired. He warmed it at a fast idle and turned to Hendry who leaned against the roof of the Ford and peered through the window.
“We’ll be back this afternoon. Don’t let anybody wander away from
camp.”
“Okay.” Hendry breathed his morning breath full into Bruce’s face.
“Keep them busy, otherwise they’ll get bored and start fighting.”
Before he answered Hendry let his eyes search the interior of the Ford carefully and then he stood back.
“Ok, he said again. “On your way!” Bruce looked beyond him to where Shermaine sat on the tailboard of a truck and smiled at her.
“Bon voyage!” she called and Bruce let out the clutch.
They bumped out on to the road amid a chorus of cheerfal farewells from the gendarmes round the cooking fires and Bruce settled down to drive. In the rear-view mirror he watched the camp disappear round the curve in the road. There were puddles of rainwater in the road, but above them the clouds had broken up and scattered across the sky.
“How’s it for a beer, boss?” “Instead of coffee?” asked Bruce.
“Nothing like it for the bowels,” grunted Ruffy and reached down to open the case.
Wally Hendry lifted his helmet and scratched his scalp. His short red hair felt stiff and wiry with dried sweat and there was a spot above his right ear that itched. He fingered it tenderly.