Shout at the Devil - Smith Wilbur. Страница 7

Slowly, through the black mists of rage, reason returned to Herman Fleischel. He stood with shoulders hunched, breathing heavily through his mouth, and mentally digested the full import of Kalani's message.

This was not just another of O'Flynn's will-o'-the-wisp forays across the Rovuma from Mozambique. This time he had sailed brazenly into the Rufiji delta, with a full-scale expedition, and hoisted the British flag. A queasy sensation, not attributable to the pickled pork, settled on Herr Fleischer's stomach. He knew the makings of an international incident when he saw one.

This, perhaps, was the goad that would launch the fatherland on the road to its true destiny. He gulped with excitement. They had flapped that hated flag in the Kaiser's face just once too often. This was history being made, and Herman Fleischer stood in the centre of it.

Trembling a little, he hurried into his office, and began drafting the report to Governor Schee that might plunge the world into a holocaust from which the German people would rise as the rulers of creation.

An hour later, he rode out of the boma on a white donkey with his slouch uniform hat set well forward on his head to shield his eyes from the glare. Behind him his black Askari marched with their rifles at the slope. Smart in their pillbox kepis with the back flaps hanging to the shoulder, khaki uniforms freshly pressed, and put teed legs rising and falling in unison, they made as gallant a show as any commander could wish.

A day and a half march would bring them to the confluence of the Kilombero and Rufiji rivers where the Commissioner's steam launch was moored.

As the buildings of Mahenge vanished behind him, Herr Fleischer relaxed and let his ample backside conform to the shape of the saddle.

have you got it straight?" Flynn asked without conviction. The past eight days of hunting together had given him no confidence in Sebastian's ability to carry out a simple set of instructions without introducing some remarkable variation of his own. "You go down the river to the island, and you load the ivory onto the dhow. Then you come back here with all the canoes to pick up the next batch." Flynn paused to allow his words to absorb into the spongy tissue of Sebastian's head before he went on. "And for Chrissake don't forget the gin."

Right you are, old chap." With eight days" growth of black beard, and the skin peeling from the tip of his sunburned nose, Sebastian was beginning to fit the role of ivory poacher. The wide-brimmed terai hat that Flynn had loaned him came down to his ears, and the razor edges of the elephant grass had shredded his trouser legs and stripped the polish from his boots. His wrists and the soft skin behind his ears were puffy and speckled with spots of angry red where the mosquitoes had drunk deep, but he had lost a little weight in the heat and the ceaseless walking, so now he was lean and hard-looking.

They stood together under a monkey-bean tree on the bank of the Rufiji, while at the water's edge the bearers were loading the last tusks into the canoes. There was ale-greenish smell hanging over them in the steamy purp heat, a smell which Sebastian hardly noticed now for the last eight days had seen a great killing of elephant and the stink of green ivory was as familiar to him as the smell of the sea to a mariner.

"By the time you get back tomorrow morning the boys will have brought in the last of the ivory. We'll have a full dhow-load and you can set off for Zanzibar."

"What about you? Are you staying on here?"

"Not bloody likely. I'll light out for my base camp in Mozambique."

"Wouldn't it be easier for you to come along on the dhow? It's nearly two hundred miles to walk. "Sebastian was solicitous; in these last days he had conceived a burning admiration for Flynn.

"Well, you see, it's like this..." Flynn hesitated. This was no time to trouble Sebastian with talk of German gunboats waiting off the mouth of the Rufiji. "I have to get back to my camp, because..." Suddenly inspiration came to Flynn O'Flynn. "Because my poor little daughter is there all alone."

"You've got a daughter?" Sebastian was taken by surprise.

"You damn right I have." Flynn experienced a sudden rush of paternal affection and duty. "And the poor little thing is there all alone."

"Well, when will I see you again? "The thought of parting from Flynn, of being left to try and find his own way to Australia saddened Sebastian.

"Well," Flynn was tactful. "I hadn't really given that much thought." This was a lie. Flynn had thought about it ceaselessly for the last eight days. He was eagerly anticipating waving farewell to Sebastian Oldsmith for all time.

"Couldn't we..." Sebastian blushed a little under his sun-reddened cheeks. "Couldn't we sort of team up together?

I could work for you, sort of as an apprentice?"

The idea made Flynn wince. He almost panicked at the thought of Sebastian permanently trailing along behind him and discharging his rifle at random intervals. "Well now, Bassie boy," he clasped a thick arm around Sebastian's shoulders, "first you sail that old dhow back to Zanzibar and old Kebby El Keb will pay you out your share. Then you write to me, hey? How about that? You write me, and we'll work something out."

Sebastian grinned happily. "I'd like that, Flynn. I'd truly like that."

"All right, then, off you go. And don't forget the gin."

With Sebastian standing in the bows of the lead canoe, the double-barrelled rifle clutched in his hands, and the terai hat pulled down firmly over his ears, the little flotilla of heavily laden canoes pulled out from the bank and caught the current. Paddles dipped and gleamed in the evening sunlight as they arrowed away towards the first bend downstream.

Still standing unsteadily in the frail craft, Sebastian looked back and waved his rifle at Flynn on the bank.