‘The villagers have been feeding and supplying them,’ Peter murmured to the Russian. ‘This path has been used regularly.’
‘Bad place for an ambush.’ Bukharin glanced up at the slopes of the valley that overlooked the path. ‘They may have elements of the escapees with them.’
‘An ambush will mean a contact – I pray for it,’ Peter told him softly. And once again the Russian felt satisfaction at his choice of man. This one had the heart for the task. Now it needed only a small change in the fortunes of war and his masters in Moscow would have their foothold in central Africa.
Once they had it, of course, this man Fungabera would need careful watching. He was not just another gorilla to be manipulated with a heavy pressure on the puppet strings. This one had depths which had not yet been fathomed, and it would be Bukharin’s task to undertake this exploration. It would require subtlety and finesse. He looked forward to the work, he would enjoy it just as he was enjoying the present chase.
He swung easily along the track behind Peter Fungabera, pacing him without having to exert himself fully, and there was that delicious tightness in his guts and the stretching of the nerves, the heightening of all the senses – that special rapture of the manhunt.
Only he knew that the hunt would not end with the taking of the Matabele, After that there would be other quarry, as elusive and as prized. He studied the back of the man who strode ahead of him, delighting in the way he moved, in the long elastic strides, in the way he held his head upon the corded neck, in the staining of sweat through the camouflage cloth – yes, even in the odour of him, the feral smell of Africa.
Bukharin smiled. What a set of trophies to crown his long and distinguished career, the Matabele, the Shona and the land.
These mental preoccupations had in no way distracted Bukharin’s physical senses. He was fully aware that the valley was narrowing down upon them, of the increased steepness of the slopes above and the peculiar stunted and deformed nature of the forest. He reached forward to touch Peter’s shoulder, to draw his attention to the change in the geological formation of the cliff beside them, the contact of dolomite on country rock, when abruptly the Matabele woman began to shriek. Her voice echoed shrilly off the cliffs and repeated through the surrounding forest, shattering the hot and brooding silences of this strangely haunted valley. Her screams were unintelligible, but the warning they carried was unmistakable.
Peter Fungabera took two swift strides up behind her, reached over her shoulder and cupped his hand under her chin; he placed his other forearm at the base of her neck and with a clean jerk pulled her head back against it. The girl’s neck broke with an audible snap, and her screams were cut off as abruptly as they had begun.
As her lifeless body dropped, Peter spun and urgently signalled his troopers. They reacted instantly, diving off the path and circling swiftly out ahead in the hooking movement of encirclement.
When they were in position, Peter glanced back at the Russian and nodded. Bukharin moved up silently beside him, and they went forward together, weapons held ready, quickly and warily.
The faint track led them to the base of the cliff, and then disappeared into a narrow vertical cleft in the rock. Peter and Bukharin darted forward and flattened themselves against the cliff on each side of the opening.
‘The burrow of the Matabele fox,’ Peter gloated quietly. ‘I have him now!’
‘The Shona are here!’ The scream came from the entrance of the cavern, muted by the fold of the rock and the screening brush. ‘The Shona have come for you! Run! The Shona—’ a woman’s voice cut off suddenly.
Sarah sprang up from the fire, overturning the three-legged iron cooking-pot, and she fled across the cavern, snatching up the lantern as she went, racing into the maze of passages.
From the head of the steep natural staircase into the grand gallery she screamed her warning down towards the pool, ‘The Shona are here, my lord! They have discovered us!’ And the echoes magnified the terror and urgency of her voice.
‘I am coming to you!’ Tungata boomed back up the gallery, and he came bounding up the shaft into the light of her lantern. He climbed the stone staircase, swinging himself up on the rope, and placed an arm around her shoulders.
‘Where are they?’
‘At the entrance – there was a voice, one of our women calling a warning – I could hear the fear in her and then it was cut off. I think she has been killed.’
‘Go down to the pool. Help Pendula to bring Pupho up.’
‘My lord, there is no escape for us, is there?’
‘We will fight,’ he said. ‘And in fighting we may find a way. Go now, Pupho will tell you what to do.’
Carrying the AK 47 at the trail, Tungata disappeared into the passage leading upwards towards the main cavern. Sarah scrambled down the rock rampway, in her haste falling the last few feet, barking her knees.
‘Pendula!’ she called, desperate for the comfort of human contact.
‘Here, Sarah. Help me.’
When she reached the slab at the bottom of the gallery, Sally-Anne was waist-deep at the edge of the pool, straining on the rope.
‘Help me, it’s stuck!’
Sarah jumped down beside her, and grabbed the tail of the rope.
‘The Shona have found us.’ She heaved on the rope.
‘Yes. We heard you.’
‘What shall we do, Pendula?’
‘Let’s get Craig out of here first. He will think of something.’
Suddenly the rope gave, as forty feet below Craig managed to force himself through the narrow opening in the wall, and the two girls hauled him upwards hand over hand.
Oxygen bubbles burst in a seething rash on the surface of the pool, and they saw Craig coming up through the gin-clear water, the masking transforming him into some grotesque sea monster. He reached the surface and ripped the mask off his head, snorting and coughing at the fresh air.
‘What is it?’ he choked as he splashed to the edge of the rock slab.
‘The Shona are here.’ Both girls together, in English and Sindebele.
‘Oh God!’ Craig collapsed weakly onto the slab. ‘Oh God!’
‘What shall we do, Craig?’ They were both staring at him piteously, and the cold and the pain in his head seemed to paralyse him.
Abruptly the air around their heads reverberated as though they were within the sounding body of a kettledrum beaten at a furious tempo.
‘Gunfire!’ Craig whispered, covering his ears to protect them. ‘Sam has made contact.’
‘How long can he hold them?’
‘Depends if they use grenades, or gas—’ he left it hanging and straightened up, shivering violently. He stared back at them. They seemed to sense his despair, and looked away.
‘Where is the pistol?’ Sarah asked fearfully, glancing up at the twist of goat-skin in the crack of the rock wall.
‘No,’ Craig snapped. ‘Not that.’ He reached out and caught her arm. He pulled himself together, shaking off despair as he shook the water from his hair.
‘Have you ever used an aqualung?’ he demanded of Sally-Anne. She shook her head.
‘Well, now is as good a time—’
‘I couldn’t go in there!’ Fearfully Sally-Anne stared into the pool.
‘You can do anything you have to do,’ he snarled at her. ‘Listen, I have found another branch of the shaft that comes up above surface. It will take three or four minutes—’
‘No,’ Sally-Anne cringed away from him.
‘I’ll take you through first,’ he said. ‘Then I will come back for Sarah.’
‘I would rather die here, Pupho,’ the black girl whispered.
‘Then you’ll get your wish.’
Craig was already changing the oxygen bottle, screwing on one of the fresh cylinders, and he turned his attention back to Sally-Anne.
‘You put your arms around me and breathe slowly and easily. Hold each breath as long as you can, then let it out carefully. The hole in th
e wall is narrow, but you are smaller than I am, you’ll make it easily.’
He lifted the oxygen set over her head and lowered it onto her shoulders. ‘I will go through first, and pull you behind me. Once we are through it is straight up. As we go up just remember to exhale as the oxygen in your lungs expands again or you will pop like a paper bag. Come on.’
‘Craig, I’m afraid.’
‘Never thought I’d hear you say that.’
Waist-deep in the pool he fitted the mask over the lower half of her face.
‘Don’t fight it,’ he told her. ‘Keep your eyes closed and relax. I will tow you. Don’t struggle, for God’s sake, don’t struggle.’
She nodded at him, gagged by the mask, and again the gallery echoed to the deafening roar of automatic rifle-fire from above.
‘Closer,’ Craig muttered. ‘Sam is being driven back.’ Then he called to Sarah on the slab above them.
‘Give me my leg!’ Sarah handed it down to him. He strapped it to his belt. ‘While I’m away, pack all the food you can find into the canvas bags. The spare lamps and batteries also – I’ll be back for you inside ten minutes.’
He began to hyperventilate, holding to his chest the boulder that would weigh them down. He gestured to Sally-Anne and she waded up behind him and put her arms around him under his armpits.
‘Take a good breath and play dead,’ he ordered, and filled his own lungs for the last time. He fell forward with Sally-Anne clinging to his back and they dropped together down towards the tomb entrance.
Halfway down Craig heard the click of the valves in her mask, and felt Sally-Anne’s chest subside and swell as she breathed, and he tensed for her coughing fit. There wasn’t one.
They reached the entrance and he dropped the stone and drew her up to the wall. Gently he disentangled her hands, trying to make his movements calm and unhurried. He backed into the aperture, holding both her hands, and pulled her in after him. Unencumbered by the oxygen gear he slid through easily.
He heard her breathe again. ‘Good girl!’ he applauded silently. ‘Good brave girl!’
For a moment her gear jammed in the aperture, but he reached forward and freed it, then eased her towards him. She was through. Thank you, God, she was through.
Now up! They were accelerating, pressure squeaking in his ears. He prodded her sharply in the ribs, and heard the rush of bubbles as she released the expanding oxygen from her lungs.
‘Clever girl.’ He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.
The ascent took so long that he began to fear he had lost his way, and taken a false branch of the tunnel, and then suddenly they broke out through the surface and he pumped for air.
Gasping, he reached across and switched on her lamp.
‘You’re not good,’ he panted. ‘You are simply bloody marvellous!’
He towed her to the foot of the ladder and began stripping off her oxygen gear.
‘Get up the ladder, out of the water,’ he grunted. ‘Here, strap my leg to the rung. I’ll be back soonest.’
He did not waste time on the difficult task of donning the gear while treading water, instead he tucked the canisters under his arm.
He had no stone to weight himself down – so he depressed the valve and emptied the oxygen bag. The set was now negatively buoyant, starting to pull him under. He could not use oxygen so he would have to free-dive again. He hung onto a rung of the ladderwork while he pumped his lungs with air, and then duck-dived.
At the wall he slid backwards through the opening and pulled the empty set after him. With the bag deflated, it came through readily enough. At the entrance to the grand gallery, he opened the tap of the oxygen cylinder. Gas hissed into the bag, swelling it, and immediately it was buoyant again. It drew Craig rapidly up to the surface of the pool.
Sarah was perched on the edge of the slab, but she had the canvas bags packed and ready.
‘Come on!’ Craig gasped.
‘Pupho, I cannot.’
‘Get your little black arse down here!’ he rasped hoarsely.
‘Here, take the bags, I will stay.’
Craig reached up and caught her ankle. He yanked her off the slab, and she splashed into the water and clung to him.
‘Do you know what the Shona will do to you?’ Roughly he pulled the yoke of the set over her head, and there was another burst of machine-gun fire above them, the ricochets wailing off the upper walls of the gallery.
Craig pressed the mask over her face.
‘Breathe!’ he ordered. She sucked air through the mask.
‘Do you see how easy it is?’
She nodded.
‘Here, hold the mask on your face with both hands. Breathe slowly and easily. I will carry you – lie still. Do not move!’ She nodded again. He strapped the canvas bags to his waist and picked up the weight stone. He began hyperventilating.
From above them came the pocking report of a grenade-launcher, something clattered down the gallery and the entire cavern was lit by the fierce blue glare of a phosphorus flare.
With a rock tucked under one arm, and Sarah under the other, Craig ducked below the surface. Halfway down he felt Sarah try to breathe and immediately he knew they were in trouble. She took water, and began choking and wheezing into her mask. Her body convulsed against him, and she began writhing and struggling. He held her with difficulty; she was surprisingly strong and her hard slim body twisted in his arms.
They reached the entrance to the shaft, and as Craig let the weight fall, their buoyancy altered drastically. Sarah whirled on top of him, and drove her elbow into his face. The blow stunned him and for a moment he relaxed his grip. She broke away from him, starting to rise rapidly, kicking and windmilling.
He reached up and just managed to grip her ankle. Anchoring himself on the sill of the entrance, he hauled her down again and in the lamp glow saw that she had torn the mask off her face. It was snaking wildly about her head on its hose.
He dragged her bodily towards the wall, and she clawed at him and kicked him in the lower belly, but he raised his knees to protect his groin and swung her bodily around. Holding her from behind, he dragged her to the hole, and she fought him with the maniacal strength of terror and panic. He got her halfway through the wall before the hose caught in a crack in the rock, anchoring them.
While he struggled to free it, Sarah began to weaken, her movements became spasmodic and uncoordinated. She was drowning.
Craig got both his hands on the hose, and a foothold on the rock of the wall. He pulled with all the strength of his arms and his body – and the hose ripped out of the oxygen bag. The gas escaped through the rent in a roar of silver bubbles, but Sarah was free.
He pulled her out of the hole and started pedalling upwards, his one leg only just pushing them against the weight of the purged oxygen set and the drag of the canvas food-bags at his waist.
Craig’s struggles to subdue Sarah had burned up his own oxygen reserves. His lungs were on fire, and his chest spasmed violently. He kept on pedalling. Sarah was quiescent in his arms, and he felt that despite all his efforts they were no longer moving, that they were hanging in the black depths, both of them drowning slowly. Gradually the urge to breathe passed, and it all ceased to be worth further effort. It was much easier just to relax and let it happen. Slowly he became aware of a mild pain. Through his indifference he wondered vaguely about that, but it was only when his head broke surface that he realized that someone had him by the hair.
Even in his half-drowned state, he realized that Sally-Anne must have seen the lamp glow below the surface and recognized their predicament. She had dived down to them, seized Craig by the hair and dragged him up to the surface.
As he struggled for breath, he realized also that he still had his grip on Sarah’s arm. The black girl was floating face-down on the surface beside him.
‘Help me!’ he choked on his own breath. ‘Get her out!’
Between them, they stripped the damaged oxygen set off her and li
fted the unconscious girl onto the first rung of the ladderwork above the water, where Sally-Anne cradled her face-down over her lap. Sarah hung there like a drowned black kitten.
Craig put his finger into her mouth, making sure that her tongue was clear, and then pressed the finger down into her throat to trigger the retching reflex. Sarah spewed up a mixture of water and vomit, and began to make small unco-ordinated twitching movements.
Hanging in the water beside her, Craig splashed the vomit off her lips and then covered her mouth with his own, forcing his breath down into her lungs while Sally-Anne cradled the limp body as best she could on the awkward perch.
‘She’s breathing again.’
Craig lifted his mouth off Sarah’s. He felt sick and dizzy and weak from his own near-drowning.
‘The diving set is buggered,’ he whispered, ‘the hose is torn out.’ He groped around for it, but it had sunk into the shaft.
‘Sam,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got to go back for Sam.’
‘Darling, you can’t – you’ve done enough. You’ll kill yourself.’
‘Sam,’ he repeated. ‘Got to get Sam.’
Clumsily he untied the straps of the canvas food-bags and hung them beside his leg on the ladder. He clung to the ladder, breathing as deeply as his aching lungs would allow. Sarah was coughing and wheezing, but trying to sit up. Sally-Anne lifted her and held her on her lap like a child.
‘Craig, darling, come back safely,’ she pleaded.
‘Too right,’ he agreed, allowing himself the indulgence of another half-dozen breaths of air, before he pushed himself off the ladder and the cold waters closed around his head again.
The underwater section of the grand gallery, even down as deep as the mouth of the shaft, was lit by the phosphorus flares, and as Craig ascended, so the intensity of the light increased to a crackling electric blue like the glare of brute arc-lamps.
As he broke through the surface of the pool, he found that the upper gallery was filled with the swirling smoke of the burning flares. He gasped for air and immediately pain shot down his throat into his chest and his eyes burned and smarted so that he could barely see.