Rage - Smith Wilbur. Страница 49

Tara checked with Reception and the girl at the desk phoned through to Miss Godolphin's suite and then told her to go up.

A young girl, slim and pretty, in a tartan shirt and blue jeans opened the door to Tara's ring.

'Hello, is Miss Godolphin in? She's expecting me." The girl looked her over carefully, taking in her khaki bush skirt and mosquito boots, her tanned arms and face and the scarf tied around her thick auburn hair.

'I'm Kitty Godolphin,' said the girl, and Tara could not hide her surprise.

'Okay, don't tell me. You expected an old bag. Come on in and tell me who you are." In the lounge Tara removed her sunglasses and faced her.

'My name is Tara Courtney. I understand you know my husband.

Shasa Courtney, Chairman of Courtney Mining and Finance." She saw the shift in the other woman's expression, and the sudden hard gleam in those eyes that she had thought were frank and innocent.

'I meet a lot of people in my business, Mrs Courtney." Tara had not expected the hostility, and hurriedly she tried to forestall it.

'I'm sure you do --' 'Did you want to talk to me about your husband, lady? I don't have a lot of time to waste." Kitty looked pointedly at her wristwatch.

It was a man's Rolex and she wore it on the inside of her wrist like a soldier.

'No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to give you that impression. I have come here on behalf of someone else, someone who is unable to come to you himselfi' 'Why not?" Kitty asked sharply,' and Tara readjusted her early estimate of her. Despite her childlike appearance, she was as tough and sharp as any man Tara had ever met.

'Because he is being watched by the police special branch, and because what he is planning is dangerous and illegal." Tara saw instantly that she had said the right things and had aroused the newswoman's instinct.

'Sit down, Mrs Courtney. Do you want some coffee?" She picked up the house phone and ordered from room service, then turned back to Tara.

'Now tell me. Who is this mysterious person?" 'You probably have never heard of him, but soon the whole world will know his name,' Tara said. 'It's Moses Gama." 'Moses Gama, hell!" Kitty Godolphin exclaimed. 'For six weeks now I've beefi trying to catch up with him. I was beginning to think he was just a rumour, and that he didn't really exist. A scarlet pimpernel." 'He exists,' Tara assured her.

'Can v9u et me an interview_with_him2',KitI'.emande.oanfious that she leaned across and grasped Tara's wrist impulsively. 'He's an Emmy score, that one. He is the one person in South Africa I really want to talk to." 'I can do a whole lot better than that,' Tara promised her.

?

Shasa Courtney was determined that his sons would not grow up believing that the affluent white suburbs of Cape Town and Johannesburg were all of Africa. This safari was to show them the old Africa, primeval and eternal, and to establish for them a firm link with their history and their ancestors, to engender in them a sense of pride in what they were and in those who had gone before them.

He had set aside six whole weeks, the full period of the boys' school holidays, for this venture, and that had taken a great deal of planning and considerable heart-searching. The affairs of the company were so many-faceted and complex that he did not like leaving them, even in such capable hands as those of David Abrahams. The shaft-sinking at Silver River was going ahead apace, and they were down almost a thousand feet already while work on the plant was also far advanced. Apart from that, the first six pilchard trawlers for the factory at Walvis Bay were due for delivery in three weeks' time, and the canning plant was on the water from the suppliers in the United Kingdom. There was so much happening, so many problems that could demand his immediate decision.

Centaine was, of course, always on hand for David to consult with, but of late she had withdrawn more and more from the running of the company, and there were many eventualities that might arise that could only be dealt with by Shasa personally. Shasa weighed up the chances of this happening against what was necessary, in his view, for his sons' education and understanding of their place in Africa and their inherited duties and responsibilities, and decided he had to risk it. As a last resort he arranged a strict itinerary for the safari, of which both Centaine and David had a copy, so that they would know exactly where he was during every day of his absence, and a radio contact would be maintained with the H'am Mine so that an aircraft could reach any of his camps in the deep bush within four or five hours.

'If you do call me out, then'the reason had better be ironclad,' Shasa warned David grimly. 'This is probably the only time in our lives that the boys and I will be able to do this." They left from the H'am Mine the last week in May. Shasa had taken the boys out of school a few days early, which in itself was enough to put everybody in the right mood and ensure a splendid beginning. He had commandeered four of the mine's trucks and made up a full team of safari boys, including drivers, camp servants, skinners, trackers, gunbearers and the chef from the H'am Mine Club. Of course, Shasa's own personal hunting vehicle was always kept in the mine workshops, tuned to perfection and ready to go at any time. It was an ex-army jeep which had been customized and modified by the mine engineers without regard to expense. It had everything from long-range fuel tanks and gun racks to a shortwave radio set, and the seats were upholstered in genuine zebra skin while the paintwork was an artistic creation in bush camouflage. Proudly the boys clipped their Winchester .22 repeaters into the gun rack beside Shasa's big .375 Holland and Holland magnum, and dressed in their new khaki bush jackets, scrambled into their seats in the jeep. As was the right of the eldest, Sean sat up front beside his father, with Michael and Garry in the open back.

'Anybody want to change his mind and stay at home.9' Shasa asked as he started the jeep, and they took the question seriously, shaking their heads in unison, eyes shining and faces pale with excitement, too overcome to speak.

'Here we go then,' Shasa said and they drove down the hill from the mine offices with the convoy of four trucks following them.

The uniformed mine guards opened the main gates and gave them a flashy salute, grinning widely as the jeep passed, and behind them the camp boys on the backs of the open trucks started to sing one of the traditional safari songs.

Weep, oh you women, tonight you sleep alone The long road calls us and we must go -Their voices rose and fell to the eternal rhythm of Africa, full of its promise and mystery, echoing its grandeur and its savagery, setting the mood for the magical adventure into which Shasa took his sons.

They drove hard those first two days to get beyond the areas which had been spoiled by men's too frequent intrusions with rifle and four-wheel drive vehicle, where the veld was almost bare of large game and those animals that they did see were in small herds that were running as soon as they heard the first hum of the jeep engine and were merely tiny specks in their own dust by the time they spotted them.

Sadly Shasa realized how much had changed since his earliest memory of this country. He had been Sean's age then and the herds of springbok and gemsbok had been on every side, great herds, trusting and confiding. There had been giraffe and lion, and small bands of Bushmen, those fascinating little yellow pygmies of the desert. Now, however, wild men and beast had all retreated before the inexorable advance of civilization deeper and deeper into the wilderness. Even now, Shasa could look ahead to the day when there would be no more wilderness, no more retreat for the wild things, when the roads and the railway lines would criss-cross the land and the endless villages and kraals would stand in the desolation they had created. The time when the trees were all cut down for firewood, and the grass was eaten to the roots by the goaps and the top soil turned to dust and blew on the wind. The vision filled him with sadness and a sense of despair, and he had to make a conscious effort to throw it off so as not to spoil the experience for his sons.