African Sky (42 page)

B
ryant felt as though his heart and lungs were about to explode from his chest. He'd never run so far in his life. It was only the thought of what Pip might be going through that kept his legs going, stride after weary stride.

He'd checked his watch and done a quick calculation as soon as he hit the ground. He had landed hard, but his body was running on adrenaline and fear, so the pain from his many injuries barely registered. On take-off he'd taken the Harvard north of Isilwane to cut the distance he'd have to fly from the ranch before bailing out. He'd lied to Reitz about the wind. There was hardly a breeze, so he could have taken off in either direction.

Though it had seemed to take an eternity to free himself from Reitz, he reckoned he had flown for two minutes until he'd disappeared from view of the lodge, past the granite hills. A hundred and fifty miles an hour equalled two and a half miles a minute. He was five miles from the ranch – at least.

Five miles hadn't sounded like a lot, but he'd never run more than three during air force physical training. His feet burned as blisters formed on his heels and soles.

He was unarmed. That was a problem. Catherine had at least one
weapon – the pistol – and she wouldn't hesitate to use it. He'd have surprise on his side, and that was something.

Sweat poured from his body, staining his tattered shirt and filling his eyes. When he wiped a hand through his hair it came back sticky and red with blood oozing from the wound on his temple. He was painfully thirsty and he'd had virtually no sleep in the last twenty-four hours, unless one counted intermittent bouts of unconsciousness.

He crested the granite-capped rise and coughed a ragged, ‘Thank God,' as the ranch came into view again. He followed the road almost all the way to the homestead, then turned off on the airstrip track. Halfway to the airfield he allowed his pace to slow to a shuffle, in order to catch his breath and make a plan.

Three shots, in fairly quick succession. He started to sprint again, drawing on a hidden reserve of strength and breath. Another shot rang out.

Catherine hobbled into the light and brought her pistol hand up to her eyes to shield them from the glare. Her leg burned with every step and her head still pounded a tattoo of pain. She blinked twice and saw Lovejoy running across the runway, a bloodied hand to her shoulder. ‘Stop, Philippa! You won't make it.' She turned and looked down at the young man. He writhed on the ground, a hand clutched over his stomach, blood oozing between his fingers. He'd be dead soon enough. ‘I won't even waste another bullet on you.'

Pip didn't look back. She kept running. Her hand seemed to be getting wetter and wetter. She guessed her increased heart rate was pumping more blood out of her damaged shoulder and down her arm. She fought back tears and forced herself to keep moving. The gun fired again, though she had no idea how wide of the mark the bullet went. The important thing was that it missed.

‘I'll get the dogs, Philippa. They'll drive you to the river and I'll kill you there!' Catherine stopped, steadied herself, raised the pistol and supported it with her left hand in order to take better aim. She held the
foresight on the middle of the running woman's back and squeezed the trigger.

The shot hit the ground directly behind Pip, inches from her heel. She felt a spray of dirt pepper the backs of her calves. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Catherine standing still, both hands extended as she took aim again. Catherine had aimed too low, not allowing for the bullet's fall. Her second shot would probably not miss. Pip zigzagged to the left, then the right, and risked another glance. She heard the crack of the pistol again and a bullet rushed past her right side, where she had been a split second ago.

Catherine took aim again, then noticed the furrowed grass in front of Pip. She held her fire and yelled instead. ‘Paul!'

Pip instinctively looked back over her shoulder. She saw only Catherine, looking down the barrel of the pistol and grinning. Her left foot suddenly met nothing, where there should have been grass. She fell headlong onto the ground.

Catherine staggered along, favouring her injured leg. She'd noticed that Pip was heading straight for the same hole that had destroyed Andy Cavendish's undercarriage. Pip hadn't seen it, and had either fallen into it or tripped on the furrows made by the Harvard's shattered landing gear, fooled by her bluff.

Pip tried to stand, but fell. Her ankle was badly damaged. Twisted, if not broken. She tried again, but it was no use. She started to crawl.

Bryant was alarmed when he heard his name called. He dropped to the ground, seeking refuge in the long grass and braced himself for the shot he thought would surely follow. Instead there was silence. He looked up and saw that Pip had fallen. Catherine was hobbling across the runway.

He had circled around the hangar, sticking to the tree line. Close to him, just a short dash away, was the wreck of Sergeant Smythe's Harvard – the aircraft Catherine and Reitz had crashed. Catherine was looking away from him now, still limping towards Pip. He stood and
sprinted across to the aircraft. When he reached it he climbed onto the wing, put a hand on the hot metal of the fuselage and vaulted into the pilot's seat.

Tears of anger and frustration rolled down Pip's cheeks. She had been so close to getting away. If only she had disarmed Catherine, it would have all been over. Or would it? She wondered what had happened to Paul.

‘Stop crawling, you pathetic little bitch,' Catherine said. She stood behind Pip, the pistol levelled at her back.

Pip stopped, rolled onto her side and looked up at Catherine. ‘You're sick, Catherine. Your vision of the future is a nightmare.'

Catherine laughed. ‘You and your kind will give Africa away in the end, surrender it to the blacks.'

‘There are more of them than us, Catherine. But I think we can all live together, even if you don't.'

Catherine shook her head. ‘The new Africa starts today, Philippa. With you. Before we can rid ourselves of the useless blacks, we need to weed out soft, liberal whites. Your kind.' She raised her hand until the pistol was pointing at Pip's forehead.

‘I'd rather die than live in your world, Catherine.'

‘All right, then,' She laughed and took up the slack on the trigger.

‘Catherine, drop it!' Paul bellowed.

She spun around, raising her free hand to her eyes, searching for the location of the voice. ‘Where's Hendrick?'

‘He failed his first flying lesson.'

‘Come out now, wherever you are. If you don't show yourself on the count of three, I'll kill Philippa. One . . .'

‘Drop the pistol, Catherine.'

‘Two . . .'

‘Stay where you are, Paul!' Pip cried. She sat up and started to crawl towards Catherine.

‘Down, Pip, stay down!' he yelled.

Pip dropped and lay on her back. She looked up at Catherine,
silhouetted against the sun, and prayed it wouldn't hurt too much. At least Catherine's plot had been foiled.

‘Three!'

Pip shut her eyes and heard the deafening thunder of gunfire. Not one bullet, but a storm of them, filling the air above her. She shrieked as Catherine's body fell across her injured ankle.

Paul leaped from the cockpit and ran through a fog of lingering cordite smoke. He'd had no idea where the rounds from the Harvard's two .303 Browning machine-guns would fall. He'd hoped the fusillade would be enough to shake Catherine. He hadn't expected to hit her.

But he had. ‘Pip, are you all right?' he said as he grabbed Catherine's lifeless wrist and pulled her body away.

Pip fought for breath. ‘I'll live, Paul, I'll live. There's a man been hit, over by the hangar. His name's Kenneth.'

‘Kenneth?' Bryant bent over her, put an arm under her knees and one under her neck and lifted her, like a child. ‘We'll go check on him now. You're safe, Pip. I won't leave you again.'

They paused to look down at Catherine. A stream of bullets from one of the Harvard's guns had caught her in the stomach, almost severing her torso from her legs. She stared skywards, eyes wide in shock.

‘The gas?' Pip asked.

‘One bomb's gone for sure, along with Reitz. The air force will have to search for the wreck of the Harvard. I hit the ground before I saw it crash.'

‘It was a nightmare, Paul, what they had planned for Africa.'

‘Well,' he said as he carried her back across the runway, towards the hangar, ‘their dreams are over now.'

Four weeks later

F
or a time she allowed herself the fantasy that they were a normal couple. The semblance of married life and domestic normality they had enjoyed were an almost dreamlike counter to the nightmarish few days over which they'd first met.

The bullet wound in her arm was healing well, but it was a constant reminder that things had never actually been normal for them at all.

‘Hello?' he called, and she heard the front door creak open.

‘You've been busy again today,' he said as she rose on her toes to kiss him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he held her close for a few moments longer.

‘Well, Enoch did most of the painting. He's a star considering he's only recently recovered from pleurisy.'

Enoch Ngwenya had come to work for Pip on the farm as a general handyman. The old man had been more than happy to turn his back on Isilwane, which had been thoroughly searched, with no result, for any evidence that might indicate Catherine De Beers was working with any other enemy agents.

‘The place looks so much bigger and cheerier in light colours,' Paul commented approvingly, walking through the latest freshly painted room. Long gone, on a bonfire, were any photos or remembrances of Pip's dead husband or his family. ‘I stopped in on Kenneth today. He's recovering well, for someone who took a bullet in the guts. The doc says he'll be fine in time.'

‘Thank God for that. Any news on the missing bomb?' He had told her the air force and police were organising yet another search for the crashed aircraft and its payload, having yielded nothing on two previous sweeps of the approximate location Paul had supplied.

‘Nothing. It's a big area of bush to search, and there were no reports from any landowners in the area of smoke or fire. It's a worry if that bomb survived. Who knows where it might end up.'

Pip hoped the hideous device was never found. She wanted no more reminders of the past, just a future to look forward to. They had said their goodbyes, together, to Felicity Langham, Pip laying a dozen red roses on the grave, while Paul stepped back, solemnly, and saluted the deceased airwoman.

Though still on leave while her injury healed, Pip had been given a promotion to acting sergeant, on the basis that she reveal nothing of the plot by Reitz and Catherine to commit mass murder at the graduation parade. As far as the official report went, the one that was released to the newspapers, a German spy had been uncovered by the police and killed while trying to escape. The government had decided to quash the release of any information about poison gas, in case it sparked mass hysteria. Reitz's mission, according to the propagandists, had been to set up an Ossewa Brandwag cell in Rhodesia, and he had failed.

‘So, other than that, how was your day?' She moved to the sideboard and opened a beer for him.

‘Thanks,' he said, accepting the drink. ‘You know, I can't wait for work to end at the base each day, to get back out here to the farm. It's bliss. I can see myself as a gentleman farmer one day.'

She frowned. They were not married, although they lived as though
they were. They had agreed to put off talk of their future until they knew where the air force would next send Paul. Wing Commander Rogers had survived, barely, as base commander at Kumalo, but both he and Paul had agreed it would be best if Paul moved on, to serve under someone else.

Although not his wife, Pip knew Paul intimately enough to read his moods. ‘You didn't answer my question. You've got news, haven't you?'

He walked outside, and she followed him through to the courtyard where he had sat that first time, when she had heard of Charlie's death. ‘Sit down, Pip.'

He told her of the posting order that had come through, to a pathfinder squadron in England, equipped with twin-engine Mosquito bombers. He would be flying fast, ahead of the massed bomber streams, dropping flares to light up their targets. It was dangerous work, reserved for the best pilots in the command. He would leave for England in two weeks' time.

She was silent for a while as she sipped her drink. ‘You told me they would give you the posting of your choice, Paul. I thought you might move to another base near Bulawayo, or at least still in Rhodesia, maybe as commanding officer. You said you'd never leave me.'

He looked at the ground, then into her eyes. 'There's work still to be done, Pip. I'm a pilot, not a bureaucrat. I've got to do this.'

Tears streamed from her eyes. ‘I know.'

The first of the Dakota's two engines coughed to life with a belch of black smoke. It was time. He set the duffle bag down on the Tarmac, turned to her and took her hands in his. They were both in uniform, Pip having returned to work at the police camp the week before.

‘It's time,' she said, taking a deep breath to help ward off the tears, for his sake. He kissed her.

‘Pip, you know you don't have to wait for me. I might . . . well, you know, it's not over yet. The war, I mean. The odds are . . .'

She knew what he was trying to say, and she wanted to silence him
before the fear overwhelmed both of them. As much as she wanted him to stay, she knew he couldn't, not if he were going to remain the man he'd become again. She put a finger to his lips. ‘There are still people like Catherine De Beers and Hendrick Reitz out there, Paul. I don't think we'll ever be completely free of them, but I'd hate to live in their world, a world without hope.'

The odds of him surviving another operational tour were not worth contemplating. But Pip had given him something he'd not had in a long time.

‘Hope,' he said, then he kissed her goodbye for the last time.