were enemies he could recognize and fight; but there was something more
than that which he would soon have to face.
Royan stirred in his arrns and muttered something he could not catch.
She was dreaming and talking in her sleep.
He held her gently and she settled down. again. He had started to drift
off himself when she spoke again, this time quite clearly. "I am sorry,
Nicky. Don't hate me for it.
I couldn't let you-' her words slurred and he could make no sense of the
rest of it.
He was fully awake now, her words aggravating his doubts and misgivings.
During the rest of that night he slept only intermittently, and his rest
was troubled by dreams as distressing as hers must have been to hern the
pre-dawn darkness he shook Royan gently.
She moaned and came awake slowly and reluctantly.
They bolted down a few mouthfuls of the cold rations that remained from
the previous night. Then, as dawn lit the gorge just enough for them to
see the surface of the river and the obstacles ahead, they pushed off
from their moorings and the yellow boats strung out down the current.
The battle against the river began all over again.
The cloud cover was still low and unbroken, and the rain squalls swept
over them at intervals. They kept going all that morning, and slowly the
mood of the river began to ameliorate. The current was not so swift and
treacherous, and the banks not so high and rugged.
It was midafternoon and the clouds were still closed in solidly overhead
as they entered a stretch where the river threaded itself through a
series of bluffs and headlands, and they came upon another set of
rapids. Perhaps Nicholas was more expert in his technique by now, for
they swept through them without mishap, and it seemed to him that each
stretch of white water was progressively less severe than the last.
"I think we are through the worst of it now," he told Royan as she sat
on the deck below him. "The gradient and the fall of the river are
definitely more gentle now. I think it is flattening out as we approach
the plains of the Sudan."
"How much further to Roseires?" she asked.
"I don't know, but the border can't be too far ahead now."
Nicholas and Mek were keeping the flotilla closed up in line astern, so
that orders could be shouted across the gaps between them and all the
boats kept under their command.
Nicholas steered for the deeper water on the outside of the next wide
bend, and as he came through it he saw that the stretch of river ahead
seemed open and altogether free of rapids or shoals. He relaxed and
smiled at Royan.
"How about lunch at the Dorchester grill next Sunday?
Best roast beef trolley in London."
He thought he saw a shadow pass across her eyes before she smiled
brightly and replied, "Sounds good to me., "And afterwards we can go
back home and curl up in front of the telly and watch Match of the Day,
or play our 01" little match."
"You are rude," she laughed, "but it does sound tempting."
He was about to stoop over her, and kiss her for the pleasure of
watching her blush again, when he saw the dance of tiny white fountains
spurting up ftorn the surface of the river ahead of their bows, coming
swiftly towards, them. Then, moments later, he heard the crackle of
automatic fire, the distinctive sound of a Soviet RPD.
He threw himself down over the top of Royan, covering her with his own
body, and heard Mek bellowing from the boat behind them.
'411111%awOv .AL.
"Return fire! Keep their heads down."
His men threw down their paddles and seized their weapons. They blazed
away towards the inner curve of the bank from where the attack was
coming.
The attackers were completely concealed amongst the rocks and scrub, and
there was no definite target to shoot at. However, in an ambush like
this it was essential to lay down as heavy a covering fire as possible,
to keep the attackers' heads down and to upset their aim.
A bullet tore through the nylon skin of the Avon close to Royan's head
and went on to lam into one of the metal offered ammunition crates. The
sides of their craft 0 protection at all from the heavy fusillade that
lashed them.
One of their crew was hit in the head. The bullet cut the top off his
skull like the shell of a soft'boiled egg, and he was flung over the
side. Royan screamed more with horro.
than with fear, while Nicholas snatched up the assault rifle that the
dead man had dropped and emptied the magazine towards the bank, firing
short taps of three and raking the scrub that concealed their attackers.
The Avon still raced downstream on the current, spiralling aimlessly as
she lost direction without the steering oar. It took them less than' a
minute to be carried past the ambush and around the next bend of the
river.
Nicholas dropped the empty rifle and shouted across at Mek, "Are you all
right?"
"One man hit here," Mek yelled back. "Not too bad." Each of the boats
reported their casualties: a total of one dead and three wounded. None
of the wounded was in a serious condition, and although three of the
boats had been holed, the hulls were made up of watertight compartments
and were all still floating high.
Mek steered his Avon alongside Nicholas's and called across. "I was
beginning to think we had given Nogo the slip."
"We got off lightly that time," Nicholas called back.
"We probably took them by surprise. They weren't expecting us to be on
the water."
"Well, no more surprises for him now. You can bet they are on the radio
already. Nogo knows exactly where we are and where we are headed." He
looked up at the cloud. "We can only hope the cloud stays thick and
low."
"How much further to the Sudanese border?"
"Not sure, but it can't be more than another couple of hours."
"Is the crossing guarded?" Nicholas asked.
"No. Nothing there. Just empty bush on both sides."
"Let's hope it stays empty," Nicholas muttered.
Within thirty minutes of the fire-fight, they heard the helicopter
again. It was flying above the clouds, and as they listened it passed
overhead, but out of sight, and headed on downstream. Twenty minutes
later they heard it again, coming back in the opposite direction, and
shortly after that it flew downstream again, still above the cloud.
"What the hell is Nogo playing at?" Mek called across to Nicholas.
"Sounds as though he is patrolling the river, but he can't get under the
cloud."
"My guess is that he is ferrying men downstream to cut us off. Now he
knows we are using boats, he also knows that we can only head in one
direction. Nogo isn't one to worry about international borders. He may
even have realized by now that we are heading for Roseires. It's the
nearest unmanned airstrip along the river. He could be waiting for us
when we try to land., Mek steered his Avon closer and passed a line
across, tying the two boats together so that they could talk in normal
tones.
"I don't like it, Nicholas. We are going to walk right into them again.
What do you suggest?"
Nicholas pondered for a long minute. "Don't you recognize this part of
the river? Don't you know precisely where we are yet?"
Mek shook his head. "I always keep well away from the river when we
cross the border, but I will recognize the old sugar'mill at Roseires
when we get there. It's about three miles upstream from the airstrip."
"DesertedT Nicholas asked.
"Yes. Abandoned ever since the war began twenty years ago."
"With this cloud cover, it will be dark in an hour," Nicholas said. "The