‘No, I was thinking of dinner. Let’s go!’
At dinner Boris showed no ill effects from the previous night’s debauch. During the day he had taken out his shotgun and shot a bunch of green pigeons. Tessay had marinated these and barbecued them over the coals.
‘Tell me, English, how was the hunting today? Did you get attacked by the deadly striped dik-dik? Hey? Hey?’ He bellowed with laughter.
‘Did your trackers have any success?’ Nicholas asked mildly.
‘Da! Da! They found kudu and bushbuck and buffalo. They even found dik-dik, but no stripes. Sorry, no stripes.’
Royan leaned forward and opened her mouth to intervene, but Nicholas cautioned her with a shake of the head. She shut her mouth again and looked down at her plate, slicing a morsel from the breast of a pigeon.
‘We don’t really need company tomorrow,’ Nicholas explained mildly in Arabic. ‘If he knew, he would insist on coming with us.’
‘Did your Mummy never teach you no manners, English? It’s rude to talk in a language that others can’t understand. Have a vodka.’
‘You have my share,’ Nicholas invited him. ‘I know when I am outclassed.’
During the rest of the meal Tessay replied only in low monosyllables when Royan tried to draw her into the conversation. She looked tragic and defeated. She never looked at her husband, even when he was at his loudest and most overbearing. When the meal ended, they left her sitting with Boris at the fire. Boris had a fresh bottle of vodka on the table beside him.
‘The way he is pumping the liquor, it looks as if I might be called out on another midnight rescue mission,’ Nicholas remarked as they made their way to their own huts.
‘Tessay has been in camp all day with him. There has been more trouble between them. She told me that as soon as they get back to Addis Ababa she is going to leave him. She can’t take any more of this.’
‘The only thing I find surprising is that she ever got mixed up with an animal like Boris in the first place. She is a lovely woman. She could pick and choose.’
‘Some women are drawn to animals,’ Royan shrugged. ‘I suppose it must be the thrill of danger. Anyway, Tessay has asked me if she can come with us tomorrow. She cannot stand another day in camp with Boris on her own. I think she is really afraid of him now. She says that she has never seen him drink like this before.’
‘Tell her to come along,’ Nicholas said resignedly. ‘The more of us the merrier. Perhaps we will be able to frighten the dik-dik to death by sheer weight of numbers. Save me wasting ammunition.’
It was still dark when the three of them left camp the next morning. There was no sign of Boris and, when Nicholas asked about him, Tessay said simply, ‘After you went to bed last night he finished the bottle. He won’t be out of his hut before noon. He won’t miss me.’
Carrying the Rigby, Nicholas led them up into the weathered limestone hills, retracing the path along which Tamre had taken them the previous day. As they walked, Nicholas heard the two women talking behind him. Royan was explaining to Tessay how they had sighted the striped dik-dik, and what they planned.
The sun was well up by the time they again reached the spot under the thorn tree on the lip of the chasm, and settled down to wait in ambush.
‘How will you retrieve the carcass, if you do manage to shoot the poor little creature?’ Royan asked.
‘I made certain of that before we left camp,’ he explained. ‘I spoke to the head tracker. If he hears a shot he will bring up the ropes and help me get across to the other side.’
‘I wouldn’t like to make the journey across there.’ Tessay eyed the drop below them.
‘They teach you some useful things in the army, along with all the rubbish,’ Nicholas replied. He made himself comfortable against the thorn tree, the rifle ready in his lap.
The women lay close by him, talking together softly. It was unlikely that the sound of their low voices would carry across the ravine, Nicholas decided, so he did not try to hush them.
He expected that if it came at all, the dik-dik would show itself early. But he was wrong. By noon there was still no sign of it. The valley sweltered in the midday sun. The distant wall of the escarpment, veiled in the blue heat haze, looked like jagged blue glass, and the mirage danced across the rocky ridges and shimmered like the waters of a silver lake above the tops of the thorn thickets.
The women had long ago given up talking, and they lay somnolent in the heat. The whole world was silent and heat-struck. Only a bush dove broke the silence with its mournful lament, ‘My wife is dead, my children are dead, Oh, me! Oh, my! Oh, me!’ Nicholas found his own eyelids becoming leaden. His head nodded involuntarily, and he jerked it up only to have it flop forward again. On the very edge of sleep he heard a sound, close by in the thorn scrub behind him.
It was a tiny sound, but one that he knew so well. A sound that whiplashed across his nerve endings and jerked him back to full consciousness, with his pulse racing and the coppery taste of fear in the back of his throat. It was the metallic sound of the safety-catch on an AK-47 assault rifle being slipped forward into the ‘Fire’ position.
In one fluid movement he lifted the rifle out of his lap and rolled twice, twisting his body to cover the two women who lay beside him. At the same time he brought the Rigby into his shoulder, aimed into the scrub behind him from where the sound had come.
‘Down!’ he hissed at his companions. ‘Keep your heads down!’
His finger was on the trigger and, even though it was a puny weapon with which to take on a Kalashnikov, he was ready to return fire. He picked up his target immediately, and swung on to it.
There was a man crouched twenty paces away, the assault rifle he carried aimed into Nicholas’s face. He was black, dressed in worn and tattered camouflage fatigues and a soft cap of the same material. His webbing held a bushknife and grenades, water bottle and all the other accoutrements of a guerrilla fighter.
‘Shufta!’ thought Nicholas. ‘A real pro. Don’t take chances with this one.’ Yet at the same time he realized that if the intention had been to kill him, then he would be dead already.
He aimed the Rigby an inch over the muzzle of the assault rifle, into the bloodshot right eye of the shufta behind it. The man acknowledged the stand-off with a narrowing of his eyes, and then gave an order in Arabic.
‘Salim, cover the women. Shoot them if he moves.’
Nicholas heard movement on his flank and glanced in that direction, still keeping the shufta in his peripheral vision.
Another guerrilla stepped out of the scrub. He was similarly dressed, but he carried a Soviet RPD light machine gun on his hip. The barrel was sawn off short to make the weapon more handy for bush fighting, and there was a loop of ammunition belt draped around his neck. He came forward carefully, the RPD aimed point-blank at the two women. Nicholas knew that, with a touch on the trigger, he could chop them both to mincemeat.
There were other stealthy rustling sounds in the bush all around them. These two were not the only ones, Nicholas realized. This was a large war party. He might be able to get off one shot with the Rigby, but by then Royan and Tessay would be dead. And he would not be far behind them.
Very slowly and deliberately he lowered the muzzle of the rifle until it was pointing at the ground. Then he laid the weapon down and raised his hands.
‘Get your hands up,’ he told the women. ‘Do exactly what they tell you.’
The guerrilla leader acknowledged his surrender by coming to his full height and speaking rapidly to his men, still in Arabic.
‘Get the rifle and his pack.’
‘We are British subjects,’ Nicholas told him loudly, and the guerrilla looked surprised by his use of Arabic. ‘We are simple tourists. We are not military. We are not government people.’
‘Be quiet. Shut your face!’ he ordered, as the rest of the guerrilla patrol emerged from cover. Nicholas counted five of them all told, though he knew there were probably others who had not co
me forward. They were very professional as they rounded up their prisoners. They never blocked each other’s field of fire, nor offered an opportunity of escape. Quickly they searched them for weapons, then closed in around them and hustled them on to the path.
‘Where are you taking us?’ Nicholas demanded.
‘No questions!’ The butt of an AK-47 smashed between his shoulder blades and almost knocked him off his feet.
‘Steady on, chaps,’ he murmured mildly in English. ‘That wasn’t really called for.’
They were forced to keep marching through the heat of the afternoon. Nicholas kept a check on the position of the sun and the distant glimpses of the escarpment wall. He realized that they were heading westwards, following the course of the Nile towards the Sudanese border. It was late afternoon, and Nicholas estimated that they had covered some ten miles, before they came upon a side shoot of the main valley. The slopes were heavily wooded, and the three prisoners were herded into a patch of this forest.
They were actually within the perimeter of the guerrilla camp before they were aware of its existence. Cunningly camouflaged, it consisted merely of a few crude lean-to shelters and a ring of weapons emplacements. The sentries were well placed, and all the light machine guns in the foxholes were manned.
They were led to one of the shelters in the centre of the camp, where three men were squatting around a map spread on a low camp table. These were obviously officers, and there was no mistaking which of the three was the commander. The leader of the patrol which had captured them went to this man, saluted him deferentially and then spoke to him urgently, pointing at his captives.
The guerrilla commander straightened up from the table, and came out into the sunlight. He was of medium height, but was imbued with such an air of authority that he seemed taller. His shoulders were broad and his body square and chunky, with the beginning of a dignified spread around the waist. He wore a short curly beard which contained a few strands of grey, and his features were refined and handsome. His skin tones were amber and copper. His dark eyes were intelligent, his gaze quick and restless.
‘My men tell me that you speak Arabic,’ he said to Nicholas.
‘Better than you do, Mek Nimmur,’ Nicholas told him. ‘So now you are the leader of a bunch of bandits and kidnappers? I always told you that you would never get to heaven, you old reprobate.’
Mek Nimmur stared at him in astonishment, and then began to smile. ‘Nicholas! I did not recognize you. You are older. Look at the grey on your head!’
He opened his arms wide and folded Nicholas into a bear hug.
‘Nicholas! Nicholas!’ He kissed him once on each cheek. Then he held him at arm’s length and looked at the two women, who were standing amazed.
‘He saved my life,’ he explained to them.
‘You make me blush, Mek.’
Mek kissed him again, ‘He saved my life twice.’
‘Once,’ Nicholas contradicted him. ‘The second time was a mistake. I should have let them shoot you.’
Mek laughed delightedly. ‘How long ago was it, Nicholas?’
‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Fifteen years ago at least,’ Mek said. ‘Are you still in the British army? What is your rank? You must be a general by now!’
‘Reserves only,’ Nicholas shook his head. ‘I have been back in civvy street a long time now.’
Still hugging Nicholas, Mek Nimmur looked at the women with interest. ‘Nicholas taught me most of what I know about soldiering,’ he told them. His eyes flicked from Royan to Tessay, and then stayed on the Ethiopian girl’s dark and lovely face.
‘I know you,’ he said. ‘I saw you in Addis, years ago.
You were a young girl then. Your father was Alto Zemen, a great and good man. He was murdered by the tyrant Mengistu.’
‘I know you also, Alto Mek. My father held you in high esteem. There are many of us who believe that you should be the president of this Ethiopia of ours, in place of that other one.’ She dropped him a graceful little curtsey, hanging her head in a shy but appealing gesture of respect.
‘I am flattered by your opinion of me.’ He took her hand and lifted her to her full height. Then he turned back to Nicholas, ‘I am sorry for the rough welcome. Some of my men are over-enthusiastic. I knew that there were ferengi asking questions at the monastery. But enough, you are with friends here. I bid you welcome.’
Mek Nimmur led them to his shelter, where one of his men brought a soot-blackened kettle from the fire and poured viscous black coffee into mugs for them.
He and Nicholas plunged into reminiscences of the days prior to the Falklands war when they had fought side by side, Nicholas as a covert military adviser, and Mek as a young freedom fighter opposing the tyranny of Mengistu.
‘But the war is over now, Mek,’ Nicholas remonstrated at last. ‘The battle is won. Why are you still out in the bush with your men? Why aren’t you getting rich and fat in Addis, like all the others?’
‘In the interim government in Addis there are enemies of mine, men like Mengistu. When we have got rid of them, then I will come out of the bush.’
He and Nicholas embarked into a spirited discussion of African politics, so deep and complicated that Royan knew very few of the personalities whom they were discussing. Nor could she follow the nuances and the subtlety of religious and tribal prejudices and intolerance that had persisted for a thousand years. She was, however, impressed by Nicholas’s knowledge and understanding of the situation, and the way in which a man like Mek Nimmur asked his opinion and listened to his advice.
In the end Nicholas asked him, ‘So now you have carried the war beyond the borders of Ethiopia itself? You are operating in Sudan, as well?’
‘The war in the Sudan has been raging for twenty years,’ Mek confirmed. ‘The Christians in the south fighting against the persecution of the Moslem north—’
‘I am well aware of that, Mek. But that is not Ethiopia. It’s not your war.’
‘They are Christians, and they suffer injustice. I am a soldier and a Christian. Of course it is my war.’ Tessay had been listening avidly to every word that Mek spoke, and now she nodded her head in agreement, her eyes dark and solemn with hero worship.
‘Alto Mek is a crusader for Christ and the rights of the common man,’ Tessay told Nicholas in awed tones.
‘And he dearly loves a good fight,’ Nicholas laughed, punching his shoulder affectionately. It was a familiar gesture which could easily have given offence, but Mek accepted it readily and laughed back at him.
‘What are you doing here yourself, Nicholas, if you are no longer a soldier? There was a time when you also loved a good fight.’
‘I am completely reformed. No more fighting. I have come to the Abbay gorge to hunt dik-dik.’
‘Dik-dik?’ Mek Nimmur stared at him with disbelief, and then he roared with laughter. ‘I don’t believe it. Not you. Not dik-dik. You are up to something.’
‘It is the truth.’
‘You are lying, Nicholas. You never could lie to me. I know you too well. You are up to something. You will tell me about it when you need my help.’
‘And you will still give me your help?’
‘Of course. You saved my life twice.’
‘Once,’ said Nicholas.
‘Even once is enough,’ said Mek Nimmur.
While they talked, the sun slanted down the sky.
‘You are my guests for tonight,’ Mek Nimmur told them formally. ‘In the morning I will escort you back to your camp at the monastery of St Frumentius. That is also my destination. My men and I are going to the monastery to celebrate the festival of Timkat. The abbot, Jali Hora, is a friend and an ally.’
‘And the monastery is probably your deep cover base. You use it and the monks for resupply and intelligence. Am I right?’
‘You know me too well, Nicholas.’ Mek Nimmur shook his head ruefully. ‘You taught me much of what I know, so why should you not be able to guess my st
rategy? The monastery makes a perfect base of operations. It’s close enough to the border—’ he broke off, smiling. ‘But there is no need to explain it to you, of all people.’
Mek had his men build a night shelter for Nicholas and Royan, and cut a mattress of grass to cushion their sleep. They lay close together under the flimsy roof. The night was sultry, and they did not miss their blankets. Nicholas had a tube of insect repellent in his pack to keep the mosquitoes at bay.
After they had settled down on the grass mattress, their heads were close enough together to allow them to converse in quiet tones. When he turned his head Nicholas could see the dark silhouettes of Mek Nimmur and Tessay still sitting close together by the fire.
‘Ethiopian girls are different from the Arabs, and from most other African women.’ Royan too was watching the other couple. ‘No Arab girl would dare be alone with a man like that. Especially if she were a married woman.’
‘Any way you cut it, they make a damned fine pair,’ he gave his opinion. ‘Good luck to them. Tessay hasn’t had much of that lately – she is overdue.’
He turned his head and looked into her face, ‘What about you, Royan, what are you? Are you a decorous, submissive Arab, or an independent, assertive Western girl?’
‘It’s both a little early and much too late for intimate questions of that nature,’ she told him, and turned over, presenting him with her back.
‘Ah, we are standing on ceremony this evening! Goodnight, Woizero Royan.’
‘Goodnight, Alto Nicholas,’ she replied, keeping her face turned away from him so that he could not see her smile.
The guerrilla column moved out before dawn the next morning. They marched in full battle order, with scouts moving ahead and flankers covering each side of the path.
‘The army come down here into the gorge very seldom, but we are always ready for them when they do come,’ Mek Nimmur explained. ‘We try to give them a hearty welcome.’
Tessay was watching Mek Nimmur as he spoke; indeed, she had seldom taken her eyes off him that morning. Now she murmured to Royan, ‘He is a truly great man, a man who could unite our land, perhaps for the first time in a thousand years. I feel humble in his presence, and yet I also feel like a young girl again, filled with joy and hope.’