He walked out on to the wooden jetty towards the pump house, and the
boards rang dully under his boots. There was a mist coming up out of the
reeds round the harbour and the frogs were piping in fifty different
keys. He spoke to the men in the single room of the pump station.
"You can get back to the hotel by dark if you hurry."
"Oui, monsieur," they agreed. Bruce watched them set off up the road
before they went to the car. He spun the starter motor and above the
noise of it the girl asked: "What is your given name, Captain Curry?"
"Bruce."
She repeated it, pronouncing it'Bruise', and then asked: "Why are you a
soldier?"
"For many reasons." His tone was flippant.
"You do not look like a soldier, for all your badges and your
guns, for all the grimness and the frequent giving of orders."
"Perhaps
I am not a very good soldier." He smiled at her.
"You are very efficient and very grim except when you laugh. But
I am glad you do not look like one," she said.
"Where is the next post?"
"On the railway line. There are two men there. Turn to your right again
at the top, Bruce."
"You are also very efficient, Shermaine." They were silent having used
each other's names.
Bruce could feel it again, between them, a good feeling, warm like new
bread. But what of her husband, he thought, I wonder where he is, and
what he is like. Why isn't he here with her?
"He is dead," she said quietly. "He died four months ago of malaria."
With the shock of it, Shermaine answering his unspoken question and also
the answer itself, Bruce could say nothing for the moment, then: "I'm
sorry."
"There is the post," she said, "in the cottage with the thatched roof."
Bruce stopped the car and switched off the engine. In the silence she
spoke again.
"He was a good man, so very gentle. I only knew him for a few months but
he was a good man." She looked very small sitting beside him in the
gathering dark with the sadness on her, and Bruce felt a great wave of
tenderness wash over him. He wanted to put his arm round her
and hold her, to shield her from the sadness. He searched for the words,
but before he found them, she roused herself and spoke in a
matter-of-fact tone.
"We must hurry, it's dark already." At the hotel the lounge was filled
with Boussier's employees; Haig had mounted a Bren in one of the
upstairs windows to cover the main street and posted two men in the
kitchens to cover the back. The civilians were in little groups, talking
quietly, and their expressions of complete doglike trust as
they looked at Bruce disconcerted him.
"Everything under control, Mike?" he asked brusquely.
"Yes, Bruce. We should be able to hold this building against a sneak
attack. De Surrier and Hendry, down at the station yard, shouldn't have
any trouble either."
"Have these people," Bruce pointed at the civilians, "loaded their
luggage?"
"Yes, it's all aboard. I
have told Ruffy to issue them with food from our stores."
"Good." Bruce felt relief-, no further complications so far.
"Where is old man Boussier?"
"He is across at his office."
"I'm going to have a chat with him." Unbidden, Shermaine fell in beside
Bruce as he walked out into the street, but he liked having her there.
Boussier looked up as Bruce and Shermaine walked into his office.
The merciless glare of the petromax lamp accentuated the lines at the
corners of his eyes and mouth, and showed up the streaks of pink scalp
beneath his neatly combed hair.
"Martin, you are not still working!" exclaimed Shermaine, and he smiled
at her, the calm smile of his years.
"Not really, my dear, just tidying up a few things. Please be seated,
Captain." He came round and cleared a pile of heavy leather-bound
ledgers off the chair and packed them into a wooden case on the floor,
went back to his own chair, opened a drawer in the desk, brought out a
box of cheroots and offered one to Bruce.
"I cannot tell you how relieved I am that you are here, Captain.
These last few months have been very trying. The doubt. The anxiety."
He struck a match and held it out to Bruce who leaned forward across the
desk and lit his cheroot. "But now it is all at an end; I feel as though
a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders." Then his voice
sharpened. "But you were not too soon. I have heard within the
last hour that this General Moses and his column have left Senwati and
are on the road south, only two hundred kilometres north of here. They
will arrive tomorrow at their present rate of advance." "Where did you
hear this?" Bruce demanded.
"From one of my men, and do not ask me how he knows.
There is a system of communication in this country which even after all
these years I do not understand. Perhaps it is the drums, I
heard them this evening, I do not know.
However, their information is usually reliable."
"I had not placed them so close," muttered Bruce. "Had I known this I
might have risked
travelling tonight, at least as far as the bridge."
"I think your decision to stay over the night was correct.
General Moses will not travel during darkness - none of his men would
risk that - and the condition of the road from Senwqti after
three months neglect is such that he will need ten or twelve hours to
cover the distance."
" I hope you're right." Bruce was worried. "I'm not sure that we
shouldn't pull out now."
"That involves a risk also, Captain," Boussier pointed out.
"We know there are tribesmen in close proximity to the town. They have
been seen. They must be aware of your arrival, and might easily have
wrecked the lines to prevent our departure. I think your original
decision is still good."
"I know." Bruce was hunched forward in his chair, frowning, sucking on
the cheroot. At last he sat back and the frown evaporated. "I can't risk
it. I'll place a guard on the causeway, and if this Moses gentleman
arrives we can hold him there long enough to embark your people."
"That is probably the best course," agreed Boussier. He paused, glanced
towards the open windows and
lowered his voice. "There is another point, Captain, which I wish to
bring to your attention."
"Yes?"
"As you know, the activity of my company in Port Reprieve is centred on
the recovery of diamonds from the Lufira swamps." Bruce nodded.
"I have in my safe" - Boussier jerked his thumb at the heavy steel door
built into the wall behind his desk - "nine and a half thousand carats
of gem-quality diamonds and some twenty-six thousand carats of
industrial diamonds."
"I had expected that." Bruce kept his tone non-committal.
It may be as well if we could agree on the disposition and handling of
these stones." "How are they packaged?" asked Bruce.
"A single wooden case."
"Of what size and weight?"
"I will show
you." Boussier went to the safe, turned his back to them and they heard
the tumblers whirr and click. While he waited Bruce realized suddenly