rocky ledge around Taita's pool. Nicholas looked up to see Hansith's
porters scrambling up the bamboo scaffolding ladder towards the top of
the cliff, each of them hauling up one of the ammunition crates.
At that moment he caught a sound that he recognized instantly. He cocked
his head to listen and then told Royan grimly, "Gunfire! Mek is fighting
it out, but it's pretty darned close."
"My bag!" Royan started towards her thatched shelter at the foot of the
cliff. "I must get my kit., "You won't need your make-up or your
pyjamas, and I've got your passport." He seized her arm and turned her
back towards the foot of the ladder. "In fact the only thing you need
now is plenty of space between you and Colonel Nogo. Come along, Royan!'
They swarmed up the bamboo scaffolding and when they reached the cliff
top Royan was surprised to discover that, although the earth was wet
underfoot from the recent rain squalls, the sun was high and hot. She
had lost all sense of time in the cold, gloomy passages of the tomb, and
now she held up her face to the sunlight and drank it in gratefully for
a moment while Nicholas checked the porters and made certain that they
were all out of the chasm.
Sapper set off at the head of the column along the trail through the
thorn forest, with the file of porters strung out behind him. Nicholas
and Royan waited until all the men were on the pathway before they
themselves brought up the rear of the column. The sound of the fighting
was frighteningly close now. It seemed to be almost at the brink of the
chasm close behind them, less than half a mile away.
The crackle of automatic fire gave a spring and a lift to the feet of
the porters, and the entire party raced back through the forest to reach
the main trail down to the monastery before they were cut off by Nogo's
advance.
Before they reached the junction of the paths, they ran into a party of
stretcher-bearers carrying a litter. They too were headed down towards
the monastery. Nicholas thought the person they were carrying was one of
the wounded guerrillas of Mek's force. But even when he caught up with
them it took a moment for him to recognize Tessay's swollen and burned
face.
"Tessay!" He stooped over her. "Who did this to you?" She looked up at
him with the huge dark eyes of a wounded child, and told him in halting,
broken words.
"Helm!" Nicholas blurted. "I' love to get my hands on that bastard." At
that moment Royan caught up with them, and she let out a small cry of
horror as she saw Tessay's face. Then immediately she took charge of
her.
tcher'bearers Nicholas spoke quickly to one of the stre from he
recognized.
wh
"Mezra, what is happening out there?"
"Nogo moved a force in from the east of the gorge.
They outflanked us, and we are pulling out, This is not our kind of
fighting."
"I know," Nicholas remarked grimly. "Guerrillas must
"Where is Mek Nimmur?" keep moving. \
"He is retreating down the eastern bank of the chasm." As Mezra replied,
they heard a renewed outburst of firing behind them. "That is him!"
Mezra nodded. "Nogo is pushing him hard."
"What are your orders?"
"To take Lady Sun to the boats and wait for Mek Nimmur there."
"Good! Nicholas told him. "We will go with you."
he jet Ranger was flying low, hugging the contours Of the land, never
cresting the high ground. Helm knew that Mek Nimmur's shufta were armed
with RPGs, rocket-launchers. In the hands of a trained man, these were
deadly weapons against a slow-flying, unarmoured aircraft such as the
jet Ranger.
The pilot's defence was to use the terrain as cover, weaving and
twisting up the valleys so as to deny the racketeers a clear shot.
Although the rain clouds were slumping down the into the Abbay gorge,
the helicopter was escarpmen keeping well below them. However, the
sudden squalls of wind rocked the machine dangerously and splatterings;
of heavy raindrops rattled against the windshield. The pilot sat forward
in the seat, leaning against his shoulder-straps as he concentrated on
this dangerous low flying in these unpleasant conditions. Helm sat in
the right'hand seat, beside the pilot. Von Schiller and Nahoot Guddabi
were together in the rear passenger seat, both of them craning nervously
to peer out of the side windows as the heavily wooded slopes of the
valley streamed past, seemingly close enough to touch.
Every few minutes the radio crackled into life, and they could hear the
terse transmissions of Nogo's men on the ground calling for mortar
support or reporting objectives attained. The pilot translated the radio
gabble for them, twisting round in his seat to tell von Schiller, "There
is a sharp fire-fight going on along the top of the chasm, but the
shufta are on the run. Nogo is handling his force well. They have just
dislodged a strong force from the hillside to the east of us," he
pointed out of the left hand port, "and they are hammering the shufta
with mortars as they run."
"Have they reached the spot in the chasm where Quenton-Harper was
working?"
"It isn't clear. All a bit confused." The pilot listened to the next
burst of Arabic on the radio. "I think that was Nogo himself speaking
just then."
"Call him up!" von Schiller ordered Helm, leaning over the back of his
seat. "Ask him if they have secured the tomb site yet."
Helm reached across and lifted the microphone off its hook below the
instrument panel. "Rose Petal, this is Bismarck. Do you copy?"
There was a pause filled with static, and then Nogo's voice Speaking
English. "Go ahead, Bismarck,'
"Have you secured the primary objective? Over."
"Affirmative, Bismarck. All secured. All opposition suppressed. I am
sending men down the ladder to clear the workings."
Helm swivelled in his seat to look back at von Schiller.
"Nogo has men in the chasm already. We can go in and land., "Tell him
not to let any of his men into the workings before I arrive,' von
Schiller ordered sternly, but his expression was triumphant. "I must be
the first in there.
Make him understand that."
While Helm relayed his orders to Nogo, von Schiller tapped the pilot on
the shoulder. "How long to the objective?"
"About five minutes'flying time, sir."
"Circle the site when you arrive. Don't land until we are sure Nogo has
it under his control."
The pilot lifted the collective and the sound of the rotors altered as
they changed pitch. The helicopter slowed and then hovered in mid-air,
while the pilot pointed down.
"What is it?" von Schiller followed his gesture. "What do you see?"
"The dam," Helm answered. Quenton-Flarper's dam.
He did a load of work down there."
The wide body of trapped water gleamed grey and sullen under the rain
clouds, tainted with the run-off from the highlands. The water diverted
into the side canal boiled white and angrily down into the long valley.
"Deserted!" Helm commented. "All Harper's men have pulled out."
"What is that yellow object on the bank?" von Schiller wanted to know.
"That's the earth-moving machine. You remember? My informer told us