fill downstream resignation.
He had done as much as possible to delay that moment. He had raised the
level of the dam wall almost four feet, and packed in another buttress
behind the wall to strengthen it. There was nothing further for him to
do, and he could only wait.
Climbing up the bank, he leaned wearily against the yellow steel of his
machine and looked across at his team of Buffaloes, strewn along the
bank like casualties on a battlefield. They had worked for two days to
hold back the waters, and now they were exhausted. He knew that he could
not call on them for another effort; the next time the river attacked,
it would overwhelm them.
He saw some of the men stir and sit up, and their faces turned upstream.
He heard their voices faint on the wind.
Something was exciting their interest. He climbed up on to the tractor
and shaded his eyes, The unmistakable figure of Mek Nimmur was coming
down the trail from the direction of the escarpment, stocky and powerful
in his camo fatigues, his gait determined. He was accompanied by two of
his company commanders.
Mek hailed Sapper from a distance. "How is your dam holding?" he called
in Arabic, which Sapper did not understand. "Soon it will rain on the
mountains, You won't be able to hold out here much longer." But his
gestures towards sky and river were immediately intelligible to Sapper.
Sapper jumped down from the machine to gr,6et him, and they shook hands
cordially. They had recognized in each other the qualities of strength
and professionalism that they both admired.
Mek seized his company commander, who spoke English, by the arm, and the
man fell into his by now familiar role of interpreter.
"It is not only the weather that troubles me," Mek confided in a low
voice, and the interpreter relayed the information to Sapper. "I have
reports that the governMent troops are moving into position to attack
us. My intelligence is that they have a full battalion moving down this
way from Debra Maryam, and another force low the monastery at St.
Frumentius, moving up the be Abbay river."
"Pincer movement, heyT said Sapper.
Mek listened to the translation and nodded gravely. "I am heavily
outnumbered and I don't know how long I will they attack. My men are be
able to hold them when gueff illas. It is not our role to fight
set-piece battles. It is the war of the flea for us. Hit and run. I came
to warn You at short notice."
to be ready to Pull out Sapper grunted. , "Don't worry too much about
am a sprinter. Hundred yards dash is my speciality. It's Nicholas and
ROYan you should be thinking of, them in that ruddy rabbit warren of
theirs."
but I wanted to arrange
"I am on my way to them now a fall'back position. if we get cut off from
each other in the the monastery.
fighting, Nicholas has cached the boats at That is where we will
assemble."
okay Mek---2 Sapper stopped speaking and all three I the trail, where
there was a fresh of them looked bank. "What's disturbance amongst the
men along the going on?"
Mek one of my patrols coming in narrowed his eyes.
"Mere must be some new development." He stopped not understand speaking
as he realized that Sapper could him, and then his expression changed as
he recognized the small, slim figure that was being carried on a rough
litter by thing-_ men of his patrol.
towards, her and sat up weakly Tessay saw him running her to the ground
and Mek on the litter. The men lowered the litter and placed both went
down on his knees beside They held each other in silence for a his arms
airoun(:
her face in his Mek gently cupped long moment. Then features.
hands and examined her swollen and arre Some of the burns had become
infected, and her eyes were slits beneath the bloated lids.
"Who did this to you?"he asked softly.
She mumbled incoherently through her black-scabbed lips. They made me
No! Don't try to talk." He changed his mind as her lower lip cracked
open and a droplet of fresh blood welled up and glistened like a ruby on
her skin.
"I have to tell you," she insisted in a broken whisper.
"They made me tell them everything. The numbers of your men. What you
and Nicholas are doing here. Everything. I am sorry, Mek. I betrayed
you."
"Who was it? Who did this to you?"
"Nogo and the American, Helm,' she said, and although he embraced her as
gently as a father with his infant in his arms, his eyes were terrible.
/4P- -I he lowed chamber of the tunnel was cleared of gas at last.
Hansith's fire burned bright and steady in the middle of the floor, the
rising hot air wafting away the noxious vapours and dispersing them
through the upper levels of the maze, where they mingled with
the'cleaner oxygen-rich air and lost their toxicity. By this time Royan
had fully recovered from the physical effects of the gassing, but her
confidence was shaken, and she allowed Nicholas to lead the way up the
steps that rose from the far side of the chamber.
"It's the perfect gas trap," Nicholas pointed out to her as they climbed
cautiously. "No doubt at all that Taita knew exactly what he was doing
-when he built this section of the tunnel."
"Surely he must have expected any interloper of his period to have
either succumbed to his hellish devices, lost his way in the maze, or
given up and turned back by now," she reasoned.
"Are you trying to convince me that this was Taita's last line of
defence, and that he has no more tricks in store for us? Is that it?"
Nicholas asked as he took another step upwards.
"No. Actually I was trying to convince myself, and not having much
success. I just don't trust him one little bit any more. I have come to
expect the worst from him. I expect the roof to collapse on me at any
moment, or the floor to open and drop us into a fiery furnace or
something worse." They had descended forty steps down into the se they
were now climbing was a chamber, and the stairca mirror image of that.
It rose at the same angle and the tread of each step was the same depth
and width. As their heads rose above the fortieth step, Nicholas played
the beam of the lamp down the spacious, level arcade that ened before
them, and they were dazzled by a riot of OP
colour and pattern, bright and lovely as a field' of desert blooms after
rain. The paintings covered the walls and ceiling of the arcade,
stunning in their profusion, wondrous in their execution.
"Taita!l Royan cried in a voice that quivered and broke. "These are his
paintings. There is no other artist like him, I could never mistake it.
I would know his work anywhere."
stood on the top step and gazed around in They wonder. When compared to
these, the murals in the long gallery seemed pale and stilted, the
tawdry sham that they the work of a great master, a timeless really
were. This was genius, whose art could enchant and enrapture now just as
readily as it had four thousand years ago. involuntarily, They moved
forward slowly, almost down the arcade. It was lined on each side with
small ntal bazaar. The entrance chambers, like the stalls in an orie