across to the truck that Ruffy had been driving the day before.
Got a map, compass, coupla spare clips of ammo - now all we need
is the glass.
He climbed into the cab and opened the cubby hole.
Bet a pound to a pinch of dung that they've hidden them somewhere in
this truck. They're not worried - think they've got me tied up here.
Never occurred to them that old Uncle Wally might up and walk away.
Thought I'd just sit here and wait for them to come back and fetch me
take me in and hand me over to a bunch of nigger police aching to get
their hands on a white man.
Well, I got news for you, Mr. Fancy-talking Curry!
He rummaged in the cubbyhole and then slammed it shut.
Okay, they're not there. Let's try under the seats. The border
is not guarded, might take me three or four days to get through to Fort
Rosebery, but when I do I'll have me a pocket full of diamonds and
there's a direct air service out to Ndola and the rest of the world.
Then we start living!
There was nothing under the seats except a greasy dustcoated jack and
wheel spanner. Hendry turned his attention to the floorboards.
Pity I'll have to leave that bastard C'brry. I had plans for him.
There's a guy who really gets to me. So goddam cock-sure of himself.
One of them. Makes you feel you're shit - fancy talk, pretty face, soft
hands. Christ, I hate him.
Viciously he tore the rubber mats off the floor and the dust made him
cough.
Been to university, makes him think he's something special. The bastard.
I should have fixed him long ago that night at the road bridge I nearly
gave it to him in the dark. Nobody would have known, just a mistake. I
shoulda done it then. I shoulda done it at Port
Reprieve when he ran out across the road to the office block. Big bloody
hero.
Big lover. Bet he had everything he ever wanted, bet his Daddy gave him
all the money he could use. And he looks at you like that, like you
crawled out of rotting meat.
Hendry straightened up and gripped the steering wheel, his jaws chewing
with the strength of his hatred. He stared out of the windscreen.
Shermaine Cartier walked past the front of the truck.
She had a towel and a pink plastic toilet bag in her hand; the pistol
swung against her leg as she moved.
Sergeant Jacque stood up from the cooking fire and moved to intercept
her. They talked, arguing, then Shermaine touched the pistol at her side
and laughed. A worried frown creased Jacque's black face and he shook
his head dubiously. Shermaine laughed again, turned from him and set off
down the road towards the stream. Her hair, caught carelessly at her
neck with a ribbon, hung down her back on to the rose-coloured shirt she
wore and the heavy canvas holster emphasized the unconsciously
provocative swing of her hips. She went out of sight down the steep bank
of the stream.
Wally Hendry chuckled and then licked his lips with the quick-darting
tip of his tongue.
"This is going to make it perfect," he whispered. "They couldn't have
done things to Suit me better if they'd spent a week working it out."
Eagerly he turned back to his search for the diamonds.
Leaning forward he thrust his hand up behind the dashboard of the truck
and it brushed against the bunch of canvas bags that hung from the mass
of concealed wires.
"Come to Uncle Wally." He jerked them loose and, holding them in his
lap, began checking their contents.
The third bag he opened contained the gem stones.
"Lovely, lovely grub," he whispered at the dull glint and sparkle in the
depths of the bag. Then he closed the drawstring, stuffed the bag into
the pocket of his battle-jacket and buttoned the flap. He dropped the
bags of industrial diamonds on to the floor and kicked them under the
seat, picked up his rifle and stepped down out of the truck.
Three or four gendarmes looked up curiously at him as he passed the
cooking fires. Hendry rubbed his stomach and pulled a face.
"Too much meat last night!" The gendarme who understood English laughed
and translated into French. They all laughed and one of them called
something in a dialect that Hendry did not understand. They watched him
walk away among the trees.
As soon as he was out of sight of the camp Hendry started to run,
circling back towards the stream.
"This is going to be a pleasure!" He laughed aloud.
Fifty yards below the drift where the road crossed the stream
Shermaine found a shallow pool. There were reeds with fluffy heads
around it and a small beach of white river sand, black boulders,
polished round and glossy smooth, the water almost blood warm and so
clear that she could see a shoal of fingerlings nibbling at the green
algae that coated the boulders beneath the surface.
She stood barefooted in the sand and looked around carefully, but the
reeds screened her, and she had asked Jacque not to let any of his men
come down to the river while she was there.
She undressed, dropped her clothes across one of the black boulders and
with a cake of soap in her hand waded out into the pool and lowered
herself until she sat with the water up to her neck and the sand
pleasantly rough under her naked behind.
She washed her hair first and then lay stretched out with the water
moving gently over her, soft as the caress of silk.
Growing bold the tiny fish darted in and nibbled at her skin, tickling,
so that she gasped and splashed at them.
At last she ducked her head under the surface and, with the water
streaming out of her hair into her eyes, she groped her way back to the
bank.
As she stooped, still half blinded, for her towel Wally Hendry's hand
closed over her mouth and his other arm circled her waist from behind.
"One squeak out of you and I'll wring your bloody neck." He spoke
hoarsely into her ear. She could smell his breath, warm and sour in her
face. "Just pretend I'm old Bruce then both of us will enjoy
it." And he chuckled.
Sliding quickly over her hip his hand moved downwards and the shock of
it galvanized her into frantic struggles.
Holding her easily Hendry kept on chuckling.
She opened her mouth suddenly and one of his fingers went in
between her teeth. She bit with all her strength and felt the skin break
and tasted blood in her mouth.
"You bitch!" Hendry jerked his hand away and she opened her mouth to
scream, but the hand swung back, clenched, into the side of her face,
knocking her head across. The scream never reached her lips for
he hit her again and she felt herself falling.
Stunned by the blows, lying in the sand, she could not believe it was
happening, until she felt his weight upon her and his knee forced
cruelly between hers.
Then she started to struggle again, trying to twist away from his mouth
and the smell of his breath.
"No, no, no." She repeated it over an dover, her eyes shut tightly so
she did not have to see that face above her, and her head rolling from
side to side in the sand. He was so strong, so immensely powerful.
"No," she said, and then, "Ooah!" at the pain, the tearing stinging pain