Blood Bond (5 page)

‘Table Mountain up ahead,' Fergus called excitedly from the cockpit. The first rays of light were invading the morning sky and his hair seemed redder than usual. Excited bodies tumbled out of bunks and rushed on deck to look at the flat-topped mountain, draped with its distinctive mantle of cloud.

Steven used his sextant to measure the angle from a section of the mountain not obscured by cloud to the shoreline and scribbled a few quick calculations on the back of the chart. ‘It's about thirty miles,' he said. ‘We'll be there by lunchtime if the wind holds.'

Unfortunately, as Steven feared, the wind died a little, and it seemed to take
Archangel
forever to claw her way towards shore. Adam suggested starting the engine but, mindful of the need to conserve their precious diesel, Mark refused.

Having visited the city several times before the pandemic, Mark knew Cape Town well, but he had difficulty identifying landmarks this time. There seemed far fewer buildings than he remembered. He searched hopefully for plumes of smoke, but saw none.

It was mid-afternoon before they closed on the harbour. Several vessels were sunk across the entrance. Steven climbed the mast and conned
Archangel
in as she squeezed between them. ‘It looks like a bomb site ashore, too,' he called from the spreaders. ‘Heaven knows what's happened here.'

Eager hands helped secure
Archangel
's lines to the quay wall. All could now see that the buildings around the once-bustling Victoria Basin had been flattened.

‘Let's just hope we can find some food,' Mark said to Steven as he came down the mast.

‘That shouldn't be a problem. I could see a few deer in the open spaces.'

‘Any people?' Robert asked. He paused, ‘Any women?' Steven shook his head.

‘Right,' Mark said, glancing at his watch. ‘Where exactly did you see the deer?'

‘Close to the foreshore down there.' Steven pointed southwest in the direction of the suburb Mark knew to be Sea Point.

‘OK, Adam, you're the best shot.' It had been Adam who, with a single shot, had killed Nigel's son Miles during their flight from Haver. ‘Take a rifle and see what you can bag.' Adam puffed up his chest, his self-esteem boosted by the compliment. ‘Keep well out to the west, and the rest of us will keep to the dock area and out to the east. We don't want anyone getting shot accidentally. Take Fergus and your boys with you to help carry back what you kill.'

‘How many do you want?' Adam asked confidently.

‘Enough meat for a couple of months. We can dry it, biltong style.'

‘Consider it done,' Adam said.

Mark turned back to Steven. ‘Take Penny and see if you can locate fresh water. I'll take Allison, Jessica and the children with me. We'll look for fruit, vegetables — anything we can bottle. We'll do a recce of the buildings too, but I'll be surprised if we find anything to eat.'

Mark handed a rifle and ammunition to both Steven and Adam and took a rifle himself. ‘Can you shoot?' he asked Fergus as an afterthought. Fergus shook his head.

‘I can,' Robert boasted.

Mark handed him the remaining rifle. Then, addressing everyone, he cautioned, ‘Take care. Stay in your groups. If you get into trouble, fire four shots in quick succession. And make sure you're back on board before dark.'

 

Steven took Penny's hand and they hurried off past the crumbling buildings beside the wharf. ‘Good of your dad to babysit,' Penny joked.

As soon as they were out of sight and earshot of the others, Steven led her into a patch of tall grass surrounded by bushes and pulled her down beside him. At last they were alone. Invigorated by the freedom, they hurriedly removed each other's clothing and rolled naked in the grass, holding one another close. Then, slowly, each holding back as long as possible, they made love. When they finally climaxed, they moaned with delight before rolling apart, their legs sprawled out, laughing and looking up at the sky.

‘I love you so much,' Steven said after a while.

‘I love you too,' Penny said, rolling onto her stomach, walking her fingers down his abdomen. Then she straddled him and pulled him inside her, rhythmically thrusting down as he fondled her breasts. She threw back her head in pleasure, her golden hair flowing over her bare shoulders. Suddenly, she gasped, and Steven thought for a moment she'd had another orgasm. Then he saw the terror in her eyes and reached for the rifle instinctively.

‘It's all right,' she said softly. ‘They're dead.' She pulled away from him, sank down on the grass and pointed towards the bushes. ‘Over there.'

Steven peered through the long grass and saw five headless skeletons, the bones tethered to crosses and held in position by ragged clothing.

‘What do you think happened?' asked Penny, hurriedly putting on her clothes as if trying to conceal her body from prying eyes.

‘Heaven knows,' Steven said. Disappointed and disturbed, he began to dress himself. ‘It looks like a group execution. Come on, let's find some water.'

 

Mark and Allison picked their way carefully past what looked like bomb craters as they progressed slowly down what a shabby road sign announced was Long Street — an unimaginative, if appropriate, name. Jessica, holding Tommy and Lee's hands, trailed behind. The street was lined with the remains of fire-blackened buildings, many of which had partially collapsed.

‘This doesn't make sense,' Mark muttered, half to himself. ‘I wouldn't have thought there was any other country in Africa which had the firepower to inflict this amount of damage.'

‘It could have been the Americans — you know how trigger-happy that lot were.'

‘Doubt it — no oil at stake in this part of the world.'

‘Gold and diamonds?'

‘Not much use in a pandemic.'

Jessica caught up. ‘So many skeletons,' she remarked with a shudder as they passed a drain clogged with human bones that appeared to have been swept down the gutters by a deluge.

Mark nodded. ‘It doesn't look like there was much effort made to bury the dead. And a lot of skulls have bullet holes in them.'

‘No cats or dogs about,' said Allison.

‘The dogs probably got eaten when people ran out of food. And remember, cats might have been destroyed by government decree,' Mark speculated, remembering the decrees issued in New Zealand at the height of the pandemic, when there had been fears cats were aiding the spread of the virus.

Many of the bomb-damaged buildings appeared unstable, but they searched those they thought were safe to enter. They found only empty tins and discarded packaging. There was no food to be had anywhere.

‘Take care,' Mark said as he led his party through the smashed-in doorway of what had once been a restaurant. Again they could not find a single scrap of food. ‘We'll head into the suburbs,' he said glumly. ‘Perhaps we'll have better luck there.'

‘Well, at least now we know who did the bombing,' Jessica said, handing him a battered newspaper from a rack. The headlines read:

SOUTH AFRICAN PILOTS BOMB CAPE TOWN

CIVIL WAR ERUPTS AS WHITES AND AFRICANS

FIGHT FOR CONTROL OF MEDICAL SUPPLIES

‘Nothing changed in this country,' Mark scoffed as he scanned the article. ‘They were even suggesting the blacks were suffering different symptoms to the whites!'

 

Mark's party arrived back at
Archangel
as it was getting dark, carrying an assortment of bags and containers laden with vegetables they had located in deserted suburban gardens. They found Steven standing beside a large plastic barrel, a hose leading from it over the quayside. Mark glanced down at Penny, who was holding the other end of the hose running into the water-tank filler on
Archangel
's deck.

‘We found a well with a good supply of water,' Steven said. ‘Found a couple of barrels too. It was a bit of a struggle rolling the barrels here over the rubble, but it was easier than buckets. A few more trips tomorrow and we'll have the tanks full.'

‘Well done. Seen anything of Adam and his party?' Mark asked as he and the others clambered down to the empty cockpit.

‘No — we heard a shot a few minutes ago, but it sounded a long way off.'

‘They should be back by now,' Mark said irritably.

 

‘Mark told us to be back before dark,' Fergus protested. He was sitting with Adam and Robert beneath a large tree on the lower slopes of the distinctive hill known as Lion's Head, overlooking an expanse of grass. Luke had climbed the lower branches of the tree to gain a better view.

‘Mark may think he knows something about sailing,' scoffed Adam, ‘but he doesn't know the first thing about hunting. See that reservoir down there?'

‘Yep.'

‘Animals have to drink. As it gets dark, that's where they'll congregate. It'll be like shooting ducks in a barrel.'

Adam was disappointed by his haul of four small deer and was keen to impress Mark and the rest of the group. He'd caught a glimpse of something much larger moving through the long grass in
the distance, and while he had no idea what the animal was, he was keen to have a crack at it if it came into the open.

Fergus persisted. ‘We should get these carcasses back while they're still fresh.' Insects were swarming around the bleeding gunshot wounds.

‘We'll head back in the morning,' Adam said flatly. ‘I'm in charge here.' The tone of his voice suggested he was still smarting over the fact Fergus had been appointed watch captain.

‘You're not afraid of the dark, are you?' mocked Robert.

Fergus wasn't afraid. He just wanted to get back to
Archangel
— he'd been missing Jessica all day. ‘But they'll be worried if we're not back on time.'

‘They'll guess we're OK,' argued Robert. ‘They know we'd have fired off four shots if we were in trouble.'

‘That's enough bickering,' Adam snapped. ‘I'm in charge and I've told you we're staying put.' The men watched as the shadowy figure of a lone deer moved into the clear ground between their hiding spot and the reservoir. ‘I'm going to move over to that log to our right. You three stay here. Robert, wait until there's a good number of animals gathered and pick out a target on the left side of the herd. I'll concentrate on the right. Wait until I start shooting, then go for it. With animals dropping on both sides of the herd they'll get confused. They can't cross the reservoir so they'll stampede in this direction, and we'll be able to bag a few more. Lay your ammunition out in front of you so you can reload quickly.'

Robert took the ammunition from his pockets, and Fergus and Luke watched as Adam slunk off through the long grass towards the log about a hundred metres away. The growing darkness and tall grass swallowed up his figure.

Half an hour later the moon rose, bathing the reservoir in silver light. They could also see it glinting off the barrel of Adam's rifle. Satisfied his father was safely in position, Luke dropped down from the branches. From their vantage point the three young men watched as a growing number of deer tentatively made their way to the water's edge to drink. Robert raised his rifle and sighted on a large deer to the left of the herd.

‘Why's he taking so long?' he whispered impatiently to the others.

‘Dad knows what he's doing. Just wait for his shot,' answered Luke.

They sat, straining their ears. But the sound that reached them was terrifying — a long, piercing scream, followed by a single shot, then silence.

‘Come on,' shouted Luke, already moving towards the log.

Intuitively, Robert grabbed a handful of bullets and stuffed them in his pocket before hurrying after Luke and Fergus.

‘Dad, are you all right?' Luke called as they approached. There was no reply, but a noise from the long grass stopped them in their tracks. They stood and listened, Robert nervously holding his gun at the ready.

‘Dad!' Luke called again.

‘Look!' yelled a terrified Fergus. ‘Behind the log!'

 

The adults aboard
Archangel
were sitting in the cockpit eating supper when they heard four distant rifle shots echo off the slopes of Table Mountain.

‘I knew it!' cursed Mark.

Steven grabbed his rifle with one hand and began pulling
Archangel
closer to the quayside with the stern mooring line.

‘We're not going out there now,' Mark said firmly.

‘We have to!'

‘I told them to be back by dark. Our first responsibility is to the women and children.'

Steven hesitated.

‘We've got absolutely no idea what the problem is. Do you want to leave Penny here, or take her with you?' Mark asked him bluntly.

Accepting the reality of the situation, Steven released the mooring line. ‘I'll fire my rifle to at least let them know we've heard their signal.'

His shot was answered by another far-off firing.

Jessica began to cry, and Mark put his arm around her shoulder. ‘It's too dangerous for us to go out there in the dark,' he explained. ‘Steven and I will head out at first light.'

 

The rescue party of Mark, Steven and Jessica who, despite Mark's objections, insisted on accompanying them, was ready to set off as dawn broke.

‘Keep everyone on the boat,' Mark said to Allison. ‘No one's to go ashore until we come back.'

They clambered onto the quay and Steven fired off another signal, which was answered immediately.

‘They're obviously still alive,' Mark said.

‘Well, one of them is at least,' Steven said without thinking.

Jessica began to cry again, sobbing even louder when Tommy, who had been woken by the gunshot, called after her.

They hurried west along the Sea Point promenade, past the derelict swimming pool and towards the direction of the shot. Once it was completely light, Steven fired a second shot, which again was answered. Half an hour later, a third signal was returned.